After Right to Food, the Supreme Court has taken up the issue of Right to Education to ensure that every government-run school in India has requisite  number of teachers, potable water, toilets, safe building and other such facilities for students. A bench headed by justice Dalveer Bhandari on Tuesday ordered all the district collectors and magistrates to submit  a report in this regard within four weeks to the chief secretary/ administrator...

Almost a year after the state government promised to impose stringent laws to arrest the exploitation of farmers at the hands of private moneylenders, the rate of borrowing has gone up to 36-40% in the state. The laws remain on paper as the government has failed to put in place any regulatory body that could take action against the private moneylenders in the state. Highly-placed sources in the government said, “The...

The CBI and Enforcement Directorate investigations have estimated that former telecom minister A Raja could have got bribes to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore, and have put the loss to the exchequer due to selling of spectrum at undervalued rates at Rs 40,000-50,000 crore. The two agencies have linked bribes Raja allegedly got to his order on January 2008 bringing forward the cut-off date for applications for spectrum from the...

Is gulping down litres of carbonated soft drinks harming your health? We will soon know. The Union health ministry on February 7 informed the Supreme Court that a definitive study is now being undertaken by the National Institute of Nutrition ( Hyderabad) "to assess the effects of consumption of carbonated water beverages and soft drinks on health of adolescents and young adults". The final report of the study is expected to...

The Supreme Court today hauled up the government for including soft drink industry representatives on food standard panels intended to act on complaints against them and asked it to immediately reconstitute the committees with independent experts. The top court has since 2004 been hearing a PIL filed by the NGO CPIL, which demanded that soft drink companies reveal the contents of their products, including pesticide and chemical contents, if any. In 2006,...