-PTI   Civil society members are expected to make a strong pitch for speeding up the process to draft the Lokpal Bill when they meet the representatives of the government tomorrow. The fourth meeting of the team LED by Anna Hazare is expected to ask the ministerial team LED by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to call at least three meetings every week to complete the drafting process by the June 30 deadline set...

The Centre has held back Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme funds earmarked for Latehar and Bokaro in light of recent murders of a labourer and activist, but agreed to release dues for 2011-12 fiscal for other districts of Jharkhand, a state already under the scanner for poor implementation of the flagship job scheme. State MGNREGS commissioner Ajoy Kumar Singh, who is in Delhi to pursue the matter, told The...

The curiosum of a ‘red regime’ with a knack to get re-elected term after term for over more than three decades within the ambit of a full-fLEDged multi-party democracy has finally disappeared. The Left Front, LED by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has not merely lost the poll in West Bengal, it has been made mincemeat of. Its vote share has come down from close to 50 per cent...

The draft Communal Violence Bill, prepared by a Working Group (WG) of the Sonia Gandhi-LED National Advisory Council (NAC), goes beyond existing legislation in four significant ways: it recognises identity-based or targeted crimes and organised mass violence as special offences, while placing accountability of public officials at the heart of the law, with varying penalties for dereliction of duty. Finally, it provides for the creation of a National Authority and...

-The Business Standard   HC issues notices to Centre, state govt and Posco India on PILs fiLED by affected villagers Land acquisition work for the Posco project suffered a setback on the third day today due to non-cooperation of the villagers who backed out of the process as a mark of protest over the arrest of 32 activists of United Action Committee (UAC), a pro-Posco outfit on Thursday. Faced with the resistance of...