After milk, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has found contamination to be quite common among food items across the country.  A comparative analysis has shown adulteration rates as high as 40% in Chhattisgarh, 34% in Uttarakhand, 29% in Uttar Pradesh, 23% in Rajasthan and 20% in West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh. Besides, nearly 17% of the food samples tested in Bihar and Chandigarh, 16% in Nagaland, 15% in...

PROFESSOR Mohan Gopal, director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS), New Delhi, is a strong proponent of the government's Lokpal Bill. The RGICS provided key inputs to the making of the government's Lokpal Bill and the Constitution Amendment Bill. Prof. Mohan Gopal, a scholar in constitutional law, headed the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal, for five years and the National Law School, Bangalore. He was appointed by Parliament...

Agrarian distress and growing awareness among farmers, tired of poll-time rhetoric and freebies, may make it tougher for political parties to woo this large electorate with worn-out promises in the upcoming assembly polls.  Ahead of elections in five states, including in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous and politically-critical state, many farmers say they are ready to pay market rates for power and other inputs provided there is reliable supply.  Swarn Singh,...

The National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) on Tuesday questioned the “appropriateness” of the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill, 2011, in respect of the proposed watchdog's independence, empowerment, jurisdiction and accountability. “The appropriateness of the Bill could well be determined by asking questions such as whether … [the proposed Lokpal] is adequately independent of the government, whether it is adequately empowered to detect, investigate and prosecute cases of corruption, had...

The state government has been blamed for actively aiding and abetting the Adarsh housing society scam, in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, which was tabled in the legislative assembly on Friday. Accusing the state machinery of overlooking subversion of rules and regulations by the society and granting unreasonable concessions, the CAG has termed the scam as a "failure in governance at all levels". Many officers,...