Public hearing throws light on discrimination, violence When Norti Bai, sarpanch of Harmara in Rajasthan, refused to give in to the demands of upper caste men in her village, her daughter-in-law Ram Peari was branded a “witch.” The villagers called for Peari's “social boycott” and excommunication. In Alwar district in the State, Sunita Bairwa of Bahedakhah was assaulted because the upper castes were unhappy about a Dalit being elevated to sarpanch. These...

-The Telegraph     A non-government environmental agency claimed today that it has uncovered a scam in the solar power mission where, it said, a private firm has used front companies to circumvent government rules for solar power projects. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said its three-month-long investigation suggested that the company had used unfair practices to grab lucrative projects under the first phase of the solar mission that hopes to add...

For the Government of India the first phase of the national solar mission has been a grand success. It not only managed to attract industry to invest in the generation of an energy considered costly, but also dramatically drove down the cost of producing this energy. In its celebration, little did the government realise that a major conglomerate had subverted rules to acquire a stake in the solar mission much...

While Jammu and Kashmir government makes tall claims about the implementation of Right to Information (RTI) Act, on the contrary its departments are not furnishing the mandatory information to the State Information Commission (SIC), thereby affecting monitoring and reporting of the law. Informed sources told Greater Kashmir that majority of the administrative and field departments of the state are defaulters vis-a-vis submission of the quarterly and annual information to SIC on...

Questionable drug trials on mentally challenged persons by doctors in Indore emphasise the need for strict enforcement of medical ethics. IN what appears to be a page out of Robin Cook's medical thriller, government and private doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, reportedly carried out clinical trials of various medicines on some 233 patients who had gone to them seeking psychiatric treatment. As in Cook's famous book Coma, in which a medical...