-The Hindu The newspaper published the “public feedback” on the first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections. The Election Commission on Monday issued orders to election officers of 15 Uttar Pradesh districts, in which the first phase of Assembly elections were held on February 11, to lodge separate criminal cases against the managing director of Resource Development International and the Chief Editor of Hindi daily Dainik Jagran on charges of conducting and publishing...

-The Indian Express The enhancement of state powers without control or transparency is not being done against our wishes The clamour for security, accountability and transparency is leading to unfettered increase in the power of states. We are enacting law after law, introducing technology after technology, to render citizens transparent to the state. But at the same time, we are weakening protections and consenting to technologies in a way that makes the...

-The Hindu The HRD Ministry official was responding to the Cabinet Secretariat’s directive in November. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has expressed concern over the Centre’s push to link the Aadhaar number with subsidy schemes related to school education. In a recent inter-ministerial meeting, the Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL), under the HRD Ministry, said the decision to use the Aadhaar number as an identification document for receiving benefits under...

-The Hindu The welfare challenge lies in providing assistance to needy households to ensure adequate diets without creating conditions in which they opt for inferior diets that are too heavy on cereals With the Kerala government’s decision to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from April, the whole country will be covered by the legislation. However, if we expect the NFSA to improve India’s malnutrition statistics, we may well be disappointed....

-TheWire.in A report from several civil society actors has found that the Right to Information Act is not functioning as it should be. New Delhi: Two organisations working in the field of right to information assessment and advocacy and a publishing house have come together to bring out ‘Tilting the Balance of Power: Adjudicating the RTI Act for the Oppressed and the Marginalised’, which is a detailed analysis of the orders of...