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Balwant Singh Gujarat’s chief information commissioner Balwant Singh, in a ruling, which is unlikely to be taken kindly by RTI activists, has said that senior IAS official Sanjay Prasad’s two-year-old report on the death of three Dalit youths in police firing of September 2012, may be made public, as it relates to a “human rights violation”, but under certain condition.

  India’s civil society organizations have strongly objected to the new Foreign Contribution Regulation (FRC)  Rules  notified by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which require the NGOs to give an "affirmation" that they are not used the foreign contribution for activities that are likely to “prejudicially affect” the sovereignty and integrity of the country, the security, strategic, scientific and economic interests of the state and the public interest.

In fresh evidence, Gujarat’s public healthcare has taken a beating over the last10 years, with rural areas witnessing one of the sharpest 7.9 per cent fall in the provision of government health services in India, Only two states witnessed a higher fall than Gujarat in rural public healthcare services -- Karnataka (13.2 per cent) and Maharashtra (9.5).

A new research work, which would which is likely to sound music to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chosen economic advisors, especially Niti Ayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya, says that the former UPA government’s flagship programme National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), has had a negative impact on school going children, especially in the age-group 13-17.

  Well-known US-based think-tank, Pew Research Centre, in a new study has found that India ranks No 24 of 38 democratic countries it has surveyed for coming up with Free Expression Index (FEI). The United States ranks No 1 with an FEI of 5.73, followed by Poland (5.66), Spain (5.62), Mexico (5.4), Venezuela (5.17), and Canada (5.18).

  Making a scathing critique of the prevailing social bias in collection of data on health in India, a recent  study  published in the well-known global health journal “Lancet” has said that “about 80% of patients visit a private practitioner, which they do at their own expense”, yet most “health-related data are obtained from public hospitals and public health-care service units.”

  The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), India’s powerful organization of top corporate giants, has declared that the “corporate results at the end of first quarter of current fiscal (2015-16) painted a rather gloomy picture, as the financial performance of Indian companies, especially manufacturing sector firms, deteriorated.” In a just-released  analysis , the CII said, “A lower than expected 7.0 per cent GDP growth in the reporting quarter could not salvage the cause, even as the rate cuts by the RBI provided some respite.” It added, even the ambitious Make in India campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed to make a difference, with India “struggling to keep face in the international trade arena.” Giving an analysis of the financial performance during the first quarter of 2015-16 of 2,422 manufacturing companies and 1167 service firms extracted from the Ace Equity database, the CII said, “Growth in net sales on an aggregate basis stood at a measly 2.8 per ...