Pontius Pilate asked Christ, "What is truth?" and did not wait for an answer. In contrast 'what is civil society?' has provoked innumerable answers, descriptions and definitions. It is suffice to say that the term includes a large chunk of social groups outside the State and the group is much bigger than the small spectrum the media is focusing on. Much of India's law-making process has been outside the scrutiny of...

Breakthroughs in the production and productivity of wheat and rice in the sixties and of cotton recently have been much appreciated, but similar advances in maize have gone largely unnoticed and unsung. Maize output has soared in the past 10 years from a mere 12 million tonnes in 2000-01 to over 21 million tonnes in 2010-11. This increase can largely be attributed to a surge in crop productivity rather than...

-PTI   Against the backdrop of the Noida land controversy, Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia on Sunday described as the “biggest problem” the situation in which the Supreme Court is called upon to give ex post facto approval to projects after crores were invested. Speaking at an international seminar here, he said: “The most acute problem over the years the Supreme Court has faced is that the plans, the buildings, the...

-The Business Standard A panel headed by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has advocated the use of unique identification numbers to plug loopholes in the public distribution system (PDS). The working group on PDS reforms, which finalised its draft report today, has also suggested a nationwide computerised system for tracking transportation and distribution of PDS items. “We have approved the draft report and will give it to the Prime Minister...

-The Hindu   Under fire for describing homosexuality as “unnatural,” Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday sought to clarify and explain the extempore remarks he made at a conference the previous day. Mr. Azad said he had been quoted “totally out of context” by a section of the media, which reported him as saying that men having sex with men was a “disease.” A review of the video recording of his...