-The Times of India As Arvind Kejriwal makes the shift from the NGO world to that of politics, he faces the tough task of keeping his civil society friends with him. NGO Vidharba Jan Andolan Samiti, which has been active in raising farmers' suicides and other problems in the parched belt, has accused Kejriwal of using it for his political purposes.  Kishore Tiwari, who heads the NGO, said, "We were asked to...

-Pratirodh.com Biometric data based 12 digit Unique Identification (UID)-Aadhaar Number linked welfare schemes is being bulldozed with 2014 elections in mind with the ulterior motive of altering voting behavior of the citizens by creating a ‘universal identity infrastructure’ linked to ‘unified payment infrastructure’.   Ahead of next parliamentary elections, with the launch of 21st crore UID-Aadhaar Number and Aadhaar Enabled Service Delivery (AESD) on October 20, 2012 contemptuously ignores Parliament, Parliamentary Committee,...

-The Indian Express The fact that the urgently needed land acquisition bill is up for debate again within the UPA is symptomatic of why this government stumbles on its economic agenda more often than not. Even as Aadhaar spread of glow of success across the government, doubts have surfaced about the present shape of the land acquisition bill. The Union cabinet had recently the cleared the bill, which says that an...

-The Hindustan Times India's ailing economy has found a new scapegoat - environment and forests. For most things that go wrong these days, from power shortage to slow growth, the blame is tossed at the door of the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), the paradigm being that forests, wildlife and green laws are hurdles to development. So much so, that a Group of Ministers established to 'rationalise' coal mining in forests...

-Outlook The Election Commission has come across instances of suspected violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act by Congress and the BJP in their acceptance of donations from subsidiaries of multi-national firm Vedanta group. An investigation by the EC, carried out with the help of the I-T department, has found that both the parties had received about Rs 5 crore each from two subsidiaries of the Vedanta group -- Sterlite Industries and...