The Delhi Jal Board, MCD, NDMC and other such agencies will have to ensure minimum safety and health standard for sewerage and other unorganised workers by giving them free medical treatment, thanks to a Supreme Court verdict. Families of workers employed by civic agencies such as the Delhi Jal Board and Municipal Corporation of Delhi will henceforth be entitled to immediate ex-gratia payment of Rs 1 lakh. A bench of justices GS...

The Mumbai blasts have again brought into focus the health infrastructure in Bihar, especially the state capital, and raised questions on whether the city is equipped to deal with emergency situations. The intensive care unit (ICU) at Patna Medical College and Hospital — the premier tertiary care centre in the state — itself needs emergency treatment owing to the poor condition of infrastructure and logistics. Most of its equipment are defunct...

The Central government exempts the CBI from the Right To Information Act's purview without seeking Parliament's approval. THE Right to Information Act, 2005, originally exempted 18 public authorities under the Central government from disclosure of information. Section 24 of the Act provided this exemption to intelligence and security organisations specified in the Second Schedule of the Act, and permitted the Central government to amend the Schedule, by notification in the...

There will soon be a new set of glass doors at Krishi Bhavan. The newly elevated Cabinet Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh plans to bring the doors — a signature element of his interior décor right from his early days at the Commerce Ministry — to his new office. Over the last two tumultuous years at the Environment Ministry, those doors have symbolised the transparency and accessibility he claims...

  THERE is money on offer, but the farmers of Halligudi, a hamlet of 5,500 people in Karnataka's Gadag district, are hardly happy at the prospect of 3,382 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) of farmland being acquired for a Rs.32,336-crore steel plant south of National Highway 63, which runs between Karwar and Bellary. The plant is to be set up by the Indian subsidiary of the South Korean steel major Posco...