Nearly four years after the High Court mandated reservation of 10 per cent beds and 25 per cent out-patient facilities for the poor in private hospitals in Delhi, only some have complied with the order. As per figures provided by Delhi government in an RTI response to Newsline, none of the major hospitals were able to treat the mandated number of patients. The government received 91 complaints about refusal of treatment...

-The Telegraph   TV pictures of a young woman being pulled by the hair and thrashed inside a police station have caused outrage in poll-bound Punjab and embarrassed the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal. Raj Kaur, 22, was beaten up by head constable Manjeet Singh at the Baretta police station, over 200km from Chandigarh, in Mansa district for allegedly stealing a Gold chain. Someone filmed the assault on a cellphone camera. A district official alleged...

The lesson for India after Durban is that it needs to formulate an approach that combines attention to industrialised countries’ historical responsibility for the problem with an embrace of its own responsibility to explore low carbon development trajectories. This is both ethically defensible and strategically wise. Ironically, India’s own domestic national approach of actively exploring “co-benefits” – policies that promote development while also yielding climate gains – suggests that it...

India must not obsess with how fast its economy is growing and instead pay more attention to its human development indicators which are worse than even that of Bangladesh, Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said. Sen, known among his peers as the Conscience of Economics, said slower growth is not a good enough reason for national gloom. If India really must feel upset, it should be because the country is...

-The Economic Times   It doesn't need economists, environmentalists or water conservation experts to tell us that the promise of free water is a disastrous idea. It will encourage farmers to cultivate water-guzzling crops. And in the process, it will lower water table levels, making water an even more precious commodity.  But this is election season when parties consider the exchequer as candy-vending machines. It is also the season when bad politics prevails...