-The Indian Express With fresh evidence exposing the excessive tactics adopted by the local police in an incident earlier this month in the Maharashtrian town of Dhule, the state government needs to demonstrate its capacity to come to grips with the aftermath. On January 6, there occurred a spat over the settlement of a bill at a roadside eatery, which in no time took on the dimensions of a communal clash,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: The state government will spend Rs2,000 crore over the next five years to build health infrastructure across rural Maharashtra. Sources said the government is scouting for land to set up a 300-bed super specialty hospital in the eastern and western suburbs of Mumbai. Currently, there is no such hospital in the suburbs. Nearly 42 trauma care centres are to be set up along national and state highways The rural...

-The Hindu Salem: Officials in the Department of Education in Salem district are resorting to ‘intimidating and dissuading’ tactics by asking the parents of school dropout children, majority of them Dalits, not to send their wards to the Public Hearing on Child Right Violations in Western Districts of Tamil Nadu, being organised here on Monday claimed the organisers. Salem People Trust and Samakalvi Iyakkam- Tamil Nadu, supported by Child Rights and You...

-Frontine Walmart’s disclosure that it spent huge amounts of money on lobbying in India and the allegation that it entered the retail sector through indirect means highlight the power of global capital in dictating the country’s policies. The world’s largest multi-brand retailer Walmart’s disclosure to the United States Senate that it had spent $25 million (Rs.135 crore) since 2008 on its various lobbying activities, which include enhancing access to the Indian...

-Outlook A parliamentary panel, probing road safety issues in the aftermath of the Delhi gangrape case, has expressed serious concern over cases of a large number of buses and autorickshaws in Delhi being registered under fake addresses. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, headed by CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, felt that criminals got away easily taking advantage of the duality and multiplicity of the policing and security system in the national capital. It...