-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The government wants to send people who pay bribes to jail. But, it has refused to make a distinction between people who collude with officials and those who are coerced into paying up. This means people such as Sumita, too, can be jailed. Sumita lost her 10-month-old son on August 9 in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich hospital when the child did not get an injection. The staff delayed the injection...

-The Hindu Jaipur: Calling upon BRICS countries to strengthen “cooperative mechanisms”, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Saturday said a united front would help in the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Much of India’s development agenda was mirrored in the SDGs, Ms. Mahajan said. Inaugurating the first meeting of the BRICS Women Parliamentarians’ Forum at the Rajasthan Assembly here, Ms. Mahajan said while India had chosen the path of...

-The Hindu Mihir Shah on the importance of an integrated policy for groundwater and surface water Mihir Shah, water policy expert, member of the erstwhile Planning Commission and in recent months head of several committees tasked with reforming India’s water laws, says existing institutions are inadequate to address our water needs. Which is why, he says in an e-mail interview, India needs an overarching water commission. Excerpts: * The proposed National Water Commission...

-Hindustan Times Gurgaon: Parents seeking admission for their little ones complain that a number of private schools are not complying with Right to Education Act (RTE) in nursery admissions. They say private schools continue to screen students and parents looking for admission though RTE norms prohibit the exercise. A number of parents said schools, in the name of admission processes, conduct interactions and try to get information about their financial status and...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...