-The Telegraph   The Bengal government today pulled out of its hat Jagori Baskey, once a feared member of the Maoist action squad and a purported ace shot, saying that the woman and her husband had surrendered this morning. Conflicting versions flew about Jagori’s current status in the Maoist outfit and the actual time of the surrender, the announcement of which at Writers’ this afternoon coincided with a dramatic escalation in hostilities between...

-PTI The health sector will get a larger share of 2.5 per cent of GDP instead of 1.8 per cent, in the next Plan period, said Planning Commission member Syeda Hamid. Addressing an international Vaccination Symposium at Surajkund near here today, she said this will be a very "big jump." She said that year-by-year achievement has to be recorded to get maximum benefits and the Planning Commission will insist that what is spent...

A life bound to a wheelchair, with speech inability and two heart attacks, would not seem like much of a life. But doctor Sharadkumar Dicksheet proved it wrong. In over four decades, Dicksheet performed over 2.5 lakh facial reconstructive surgeries for free. Until this winter, that is. He died on November 14 in Brooklyn, US. He was 81. Dicksheet has two daughters and a son from two marriages, neither of which lasted. What...

-The Telegraph   The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to ensure that drug prices go down, not up, if and when a new price control policy comes into force. “Prices may go down but should not go up because of policy,” Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyay, sitting alongside senior judge G.S. Singhvi, said. “Bring it down, don’t escalate it in the name of policy,” the bench told additional solicitor-general Parag Tripathi, who was speaking...

Team Anna on Thursday echoed concerns raised by Aruna Roy-led National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) on the government's grievance redressal bill. Criticizing the structure for redressal created in the government bill as highly centralized that would collapse under the weight of complaints, Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal said the selection process was "faulty". Activists have suggested that complaints be dealt with at the district level itself. Under the current...