-The Telegraph Bombay High Court today said the “arbitrary” arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi had breached his freedom of speech and expression. The court also said it intended to lay down guidelines for application of the pre-Independence sedition law to ensure that liberties guaranteed to citizens in a civil society are not encroached upon. “How can you (police) arrest people on frivolous grounds?” it said. The court had on Tuesday granted bail to Trivedi,...

-The Telegraph Swiss pharma company Novartis today told the Supreme Court that if it gets an Indian patent on its anti-cancer drug Glivec, it would continue giving free drugs to 85 per cent patients till 2018 provided prices were left untouched. But the court described its scheme of classifying people on the basis of their incomes as “too complicated” and again urged the company to reduce prices. Whatever the scheme, the end result...

-The Business Standard Make politicians' asset disclosures clearer, and follow up In an important move towards transparency, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year reminded his council of ministers to declare their assets, movable and immovable, and said that the declarations would be put up online. Declarations for 2012 are now online and these should be welcome. But they also reveal that many lacunae remain in terms of full and clear disclosure. The...

-The Hindu High Court directs filing of Affidavit on measures taken Admitting a public interest litigation petition, the Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the West Bengal government to file an Affidavit within two weeks on the measures it has taken to prevent the outbreak of dengue in the State. The petition, filed by advocate Basabi Roy Chowdhury earlier this week, called for a proper policy for monitoring and controlling the disease and...

-The Times of India In the cleaning of nearly 13 lakh insanitary dry toilets across the country, human beings and animals play an almost equal role, the Supreme Court was told on Monday. In what could deal a severe blow to the sanitation claims of successive governments, petitioner NGO 'Safai Karmachari Andolan' culled out data from the 2011 census report to inform the court that 4.97 lakh dry toilets were "serviced by...