-The Hindu There is no case for water privatisation. In pushing for it, we are ignoring the key issue, which is better governance, writes Himanshu Thakkar Privatisation of water is unwarranted, unjustified and unnecessary. In pushing for it, we are not really addressing the key issue plaguing the water sector, which is a need for better governance. We need a democratic, transparent, accountable and participatory governance in a bottom-up approach, on each...

-PTI NEW delhi: The government today relaxed restrictions on exports of certain organic agricultural and processed products like wheat, non-basmati rice to boost their overseas shipments. "Export of organic agricultural and organic processed products like wheat, non-basmati rice, edible oils, sugar have been exempted from existing quantitative ceilings," Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification. Please click here to read more. ...

-The Telegraph New delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday questioned the Union government for making the Aadhaar biometric identification number mandatory for those getting a permanent account number (PAN) card from the income tax authorities. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, told a bench headed by Justice A.K. Sikri that the government has detected PAN cards based on fake documents. Rohatgi said there were instances of one person having multiple PAN...

-The Telegraph New delhi: The Supreme Court today decided to refer to a five-judge Constitution bench the question whether the right to free speech and expression includes "the right to insult another person's right to dignity". A bench of Justices Dipak Misra, A.M. Khanwilkar and M. Shantanagoudar asked senior advocates Harish Salve and Fali Nariman, assisting the court as amicus curiae, and a counsel for former Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan to...

-The Telegraph New delhi: Regulatory efforts to get doctors in India to prescribe medicines only through their generic names, initiated about 15 years ago, will need to overcome legal challenges and resistance from sections of doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, experts said. Senior pharmacologists and industry analysts have also said it will be misleading to presume that prescriptions with generic names will automatically translate into lower medicine bills for patients as studies...