-The Times of India MUMBAI: Kanpur-based cartoonist Aseem Trivedi (25), who surrendered to the BKC police on Saturday, was remanded in seven days' police custody by the Bandra holiday court on Sunday. Charged with sedition for insulting national symbols through his cartoons, he refused to engage a lawyer in protest. The cartoons in question are on the theme Cartoons Against Corruption and one of them depicts the national emblem as comprising...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: In an explosive revelation, a whistle-blower in the state government has said a staggering Rs 35,000 crore was siphoned off and wasted on dud irrigation projects in the past decade. The Maharashtra government has spent Rs 70,000 crore on such projects across the state during this period. Vijay Pandhare, chief engineer (water resources department) and member of the state-level technical advisory committee who wrote a stinging 15-page...

-The Times of India The parliamentary committee report on genetically modified (GM) organisms is an attempt to give a quiet burial to biotechnology in India. On behalf of the farmers of India, let me say that this report totally fails to reflect farmers' aspirations, and distorts the scientific significance of biotechnology - including genetic engineering - for the national economy. Instead, it echoes persistent canards by some environmental NGOs. Indian farming suffers...

-The Telegraph A government-appointed panel has warned against schoolchildren being promoted till Class VIII without any sort of testing or special coaching to cover their weaknesses, a trend now found in most state-run schools. The panel headed by National Advisory Council member N.C. Saxena, which reviewed the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, has found that most government elementary schools are not following the system of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) prescribed by the Right...

-Yahoo With the government trying to gag everything that criticises its policies or actions, the day is not far when India too will be seen as 'illiberal'. Bizarre. Affectionate. Eccentric. These are some of the adjectives that have been used to describe India, but never has the word 'intolerant' become a prefix to our nation. However, with the government trying to gag everything that criticises its policies or actions, the day is...