-Business Standard Assocham-Skymet report, however, says untimely rain likely to reappear in north India in 5-6 weeks India's southwest monsoon, which accounts for almost 80 per cent of the country's total precipitation, is expected to be normal this year, predicts a joint study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry and private weather forecaster Skymet. However, there would be pockets where the showers are expected to be deficient. These include Himachal Pradesh,...

-Outlook The NDA seems bent on subverting the RTI Act. Is the slow dismembering of the CIC part of the plan? We Have No Recall For the first time since its inception, CIC's functions expropriated by the govt A search committee set up to appoint a new CIC chief says meeting details cannot be revealed; "highly confidential" RTI appeals pertaining to prime depts...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The law commission has opposed the concept of compulsory voting, saying it is "highly undesirable", and recommended that either the President or a governor - and not the Speaker - should decide whether to disqualify a lawmaker who switches sides. The recommendations are among a series of electoral reforms that the commission, headed by retired Delhi High Court Chief Justice A.P. Shah, has suggested in a report it...

-The Hindu Nine amendments have been adopted. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015, popularly known as the land bill, was adopted by the Lok Sabha after debating it for two days. Congress and Biju Janata Dal walked out ahead of the voting, to protest the removal of a clause that makes it mandatory to get farmers' consent prior to the acquisition of land...

-The Indian Express Indian National Interest requires that our environment be ruined, people displaced, resources thoughtlessly mined, all for the benefit of foreign companies and for the private benefit of people in power. This is the only conclusion that we can draw after reading the recent revelations on Essar alongside the ministry of home affairs (MHA) affidavit in the Delhi High Court responding to Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai's plea that her...