Free speech advocates and Internet users are protesting new Indian regulations restricting Web content that, among other things, can be considered "disparaging," "harassing," "blasphemous" or "hateful." The new rules, quietly issued by the country's Department of Information Technology earlier this month and only now attracting attention, allow officials and private citizens to demand that Internet sites and service providers remove content they consider objectionable on the basis of a long list...

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that government doctors defying the ban on private practice and charging consultation fee from patients in a clinic during spare time could neither be accused of indulging in trade nor be booked under the anti-corruption law. A bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra quashed the FIR lodged against two Punjab government doctors, who were charging Rs 100 per patient in an evening...

Chaotic scenes; coalition MPs say the draft was “outsourced” After accusations and counter-accusations through unprecedented chaotic scenes at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Thursday, 11 of its 21 members recorded their “vote” to “reject” the draft report on 2G scam circulated to the members by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Wednesday. The majority that voted to reject the report said they intended to send recorded rejection...

India on Tuesday raised objections relating to the “absence of alternatives” and “procedural violations” to the recommendation for a global ban on endosulfan at the conference of parties to the Stockholm Convention meeting in Geneva. However, C. Jayakumar, observer from Kerala, told TheHindu over telephone from Geneva that there was softening in India's approach compared to its position at previous meetings. Though it had said that the health and environmental effects...

Resurgent global food prices, which averaged 10 per cent in many economies and Posted record increases in the first two months of this year, may push nearly 30 million Indians and 64 million people in the Asian region into extreme poverty, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Tuesday. In a report titled “Global Food Price Inflation and Developing Asia,” the Manila-based bank warned that a 10 per cent rise in...