A widening corruption scandal that has touched India’s prime minister sent the country’s stock markets down sharply on Friday and threatened to tarnish the country’s image as a rising economic power. Setting off the turmoil was a report from the country’s auditor earlier this week that about $40 billion in wireless spectrum license fees had been squandered by the government’s telecommunications and information technology minister. On Thursday, India’s Supreme Court criticized...

Notice to Centre, CBI and Outlook and Open magazines The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to examine industrialist Ratan Tata's petition, which alleged that publication of the tapes of his private conversations with corporate lobbyist Nira Radia had infringed his right to privacy, and issued notice to the Union government, the CBI and the Outlook and Open magazines, seeking their response in 10 days. A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K....

In any democracy, the right to individual privacy is absolute. If what one citizen does in one’s personal life is splashed in a public arena, newspapers and TV channels for instance, the results are not only disagreeable, but also distasteful. Modern life, however, is much more complicated than life in ancient Athens. Very often, the mighty and the powerful abuse this right to hide facts that have a grave public bearing....

The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill providing for a mechanism to deal with complaints against judges of High Courts and the Supreme Court was tabled in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday by Law Minister Veerappa Moily even as Opposition MPs were demanding a JPC probe into the 2G spectrum scam. The Bill sets judicial standards and makes judges accountable for their lapses and mandates judges of the High Courts and the...

Central Vigilance Commissioner PJ Thomas will send in his resignation to the President on Wednesday. With the Supreme Court and the Opposition piling up pressure on the Centre for the removal of the ‘tainted’ CVC, the government leadership has advised Thomas to vacate the post. Thomas continuance became untenable on Tuesday after the Supreme Court questioned his suitability to supervise CBI’s investigations into the 2G spectrum scandal. “He had justified the...