-The Business Standard   To submit report on use of children in anti-Posco agitation soon. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has urged the Orissa government to take immediate steps to withdraw police forces who have been given shelter in schools in the Posco project site area. The commission also appealed to the state Chief Secretary B K Patnaik, secretary (women & child development) Arti Ahuja and the anti-Posco outfit...

If actions speak louder than words, then the government has just spoken loud and clear. There could be no stronger indication of the government’s lack of serious intent in building an effective anti-corruption regime than the decision to remove the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the purview of the Right to Information (RTI) law. Without any discussion in the public domain, the government has decided to use Section 24 of...

As expected, the government and the Anna Team have disagreed on vital points. The question of inclusion of the Prime Minister within the ambit of the Lokpal is being falsely blown out of proportions by the government’s apologists. The Prime Minister, though the head of government, is only first amongst equals. In a democratic country, political vacuum does not arise as the Cabinet has a collective responsibility. Also, our past...

The Right to Education Act, which lacks a transformational vision, is geared to preparing foot soldiers for the global market. THE most encouraging and delightful news regarding school education in India since the pro-market reforms began in 1991 came from Erode district in Tamil Nadu recently. To be sure, it is neither about the World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) of the 1990s nor about the internationally funded and...

Rather than shutting its doors on ‘civil society’, the government should be thanking its stars that the latter wants to make law, not war. Distributing tee-shirts with this slogan would be a better use of the government’s ‘hearts and minds’ funds than the integrated action plan to counter Naxals, or the army’s tourism trips to Pune for Kashmiri schoolgirls. The UPA regime has been unprecedented for the spate of legislation that...