-PTI Even as floods play havoc in Uttarakhand, several states have opposed the provisions of a 38-year-old Model Flood Bill aimed at minimising losses to life and property in the natural calamity. The Bill, prepared by the Central Water Commission in 1975, will empower authorities to remove dwellings from flood-prone areas. States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have opposed the draft Bill, saying rehabilitation of people who will be displaced...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: As a humongous natural calamity grips Uttarakhand, it is now emerging that the state has had no disaster management plan worth its name despite the region being highly disaster prone due to fragile mountains, tectonic activity and climatic events. A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) released as recently as on April 23 this year says that the State Disaster Management Authority, which was formed in October...

-Reuters India has launched a wide-ranging surveillance programme that will give its security agencies and even income tax officials the ability to tap directly into e-mails and phone calls without oversight by courts or parliament, several sources said. The expanded surveillance in the world's most populous democracy, which the government says will help safeguard national security, has alarmed privacy advocates at a time when allegations of massive US digital snooping beyond American...

-Outlook The government today approved Planning Commission's proposal to merge the 147 Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) and bring it down to 66 across various sectors for effective implementation and monitoring of the 12th Five Year Plan. "The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal to merge CCS", Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari told reporters after the meeting. Last month, a Group of Ministers, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, had approved merging of...

-IANS The right of mentally-ill patients to decide their mode of treatment, decriminalising suicide for them and a ban on electric shock treatment without anaesthesia are some of the progressive provisions of the new mental health bill proposed by the government. "The bill was passed by the union cabinet last week," Health Secretary K. Desiraju told IANS. Once passed by parliament, the bill will repeal the Mental Health Act, 1987. If passed, it will...