While BJP’s opposition to make the national investigating agency’s (NIA) director-general SC Sinha a member of the national human rights commission (NHRC) post retirement is well known, it now emerges that senior opposition leaders Aru
Swiss pharma major Novartis AG Monday lost a seven-year long legal battle for getting its blood cancer drug Glivec patented in India and to restrain Indian companies from manufacturing generic drugs, with the Supreme Court rejecting the multinatio
When Ram Kishan nonchalantly shows his deeply calloused hands his empty eyes reveal nothing. There is no longing there. No anger. No hate. No sadness. No hope. There is not even a fleeting glimpse of a moist flicker. There are just two haunting, b
Unrecognised private schools in the national capital seem to have finally caught a break from the stringent norms on space that are a part of enforcing the right to education (RTE). Recognition from any municipal, state or central educatio
Shale gas has been a game changer for the US ever since fracking (see explanation below) through innovative horizontal drilling was introduced there a decade ago. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates, the US produc
Being minister for information and broadcasting of a `weak` government isn`t easy. Even party colleagues regularly taunted Ambika Soni, the immediate past minister, of being too nice (read, too weak) whenever the news channels went hammer and tong
The Income Tax department in India has served a Rs 2,000 crore demand notice on Finnish mobile firm maker Nokia for alleged evasion of taxes in its business transactions in the country. The department had on March 21 asked the firm to subm
Conceding to the demands of non-Congress Chief Ministers, the Centre has diluted the much touted NCTC with Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde exuding confidence that the anti-terror hub would see the light of the day during the Chief Ministers` conf
Amid a nation-wide controversy, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has withdrawn changes suggested by it in civil services mains examination, dropping mandatory English language paper requirement. UPSC, which conducts the prestigio
Notwithstanding actor Sanjay Dutt`s statement that he would not apply for mercy, Press Council of India (PCI) chairman Justice (retd) Markandey Katju on Wednesday said that he would still go ahead and seek pardon for Dutt and 1993 Mumbai blasts ca
Anti-corruption crusader and social activist Anna Hazare will address eight public rallies in Punjab during his five-day `Janatantra Yatra` beginning March 30 from Amritsar. Gurdeep Singh, a spokesperson of the Janatantra Morcha said on We
The customs, union excise duties and service tax together gross the highest revenue for the country. According to the budget estimates, this figure is expected to be around Rs 5,05,004 crore in the financial year 2012-13. Despite excise alone cont
An emotionally choked bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, for the first time, clarified that he will not seek pardon and will surrender in time. The supreme court, on March 21, sentenced him to five-year imprisonment under the Arms Act. He has already se
I don’t get it. Maybe you are smarter, you do. But didn’t India send its army with its tanks into Sri Lanka to quell the Tamil rebels and get a bloody nose in the bargain? At one stage weren’t we on the side of the Colombo govern
In the first-high level contact after the new Chinese leadership took over, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met President Xi Jinping and raised the issue of Beijing`s proposal to construct three dams across the Brahmaputra river on its side.
Lakhs of students in across India will be travelling to smaller districts to take the joint entrance exam (mains) scheduled for April 7. The JEE (main) in 25 cities across the country and three outside India will be conducted only on computers, wh
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on March 22 notified an already-existing regulation, which restricts the advertising time on television channels (both entertainment and news) to 12 minutes in a one-hour slot, following complaints
Even as the human rights situation in Manipur has taken a turn for the worse in the recent years, the state human rights commission has been without a chairperson and thus dysfunctional since May 2010. “The state human rights
Voicing concern over increased attacks on Indian fishermen by Sri Lankan Navy, Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday asked the Centre to initiate diplomatic steps to check it and urged for withdrawal of the 1974 agreement ceding Katchatheevu islet to t
