-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Terming some of the answers provided by Walmart as "incomprehensible" and parts of the deposition by its just departed India boss Raj Jain as "ambiguous", a government committee set up to look into whether the US behemoth indulged in bribery in India, has refused to give it a clean chit, complicating its efforts to draw a line under the episode. The one-man committee under Justice Mukul Mudgal...

-The Hindu     2,400 stranded at Badrinath, doctors warn of epidemics in Kedarnath Dehradun: Residents of dozens of rain-affected villages across Uttarakhand are starving and ill. Villages such as Pilang in Uttarkashi, Lambgodi in the Kedar Valley and those in the Yamuna Valley in Garhwal division are among the worst affected. Famished residents of Munsyari, Sosa, Sirkha, Gungi and several other villages in the Kumaon division have urged President Pranab Mukherjee to order the...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Before populism spikes in the run-up to the general elections, the Planning Commission has cautioned states against doling out freebies such as free laptops, tablets, and mobiles in the name of development spending and instead asked them to focus on schemes related to infrastructure development. "This year's message is basically that states must have much more efficient functioning of the inclusiveness scheme. Since a lot of the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has decided to put a blanket ban on several websites that allow users to share pornographic content. In an order dated June 13, department of telecom (DoT) has directed internet service providers (ISPs) to block 39 websites. Most of them are web forums, where internet users share images and URLs to download pornographic files. But some of these websites are also image hosts and...

-The Hindu     Unorthodox models of conservation are needed to save this elusive and magnificent big bird "Have you seen the Big Five?" That's the question you will invariably be asked if you visit the East African states. The Big Five, Africa's largest, and thus most prominent, mammals - the lion, the rhino, the leopard, the buffalo and the elephant - have dominated camp fire stories, tourist expectations and the growth of conservation. Across...