-The Times of India Rs 4,439 crore has literally gone down the drain called the Yamuna. Delhi and Uttar Pradesh have told the Supreme Court that they have spent Rs 4,124 crore on making the river's water potable, but the Central Pollution Control Board's latest report shows that Yamuna's water still resembles that of a drain.  The New Delhi Municipal Committee and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi have spent an additional Rs...

-DNA No one believes the news anymore. Who can blame them? The newspapers are so noisy, filled with scams and slanging matches, that even a top newspaper-Bureaucrat like your columnist cringes while scanning the morning’s front pages. I too don’t want to read the papers. Then there’s the matter of credibility: the media is barely clinging to the last vestige of public trust, and that’s only because the institution of the...

-The Hindu Have Emami and Karuturi bitten off more than they can chew in their land quest? Indian companies which invested in controversial deals involving hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Ethiopia have found themselves out of their depth in a fast-growing African economy that is still in the process of building critical transport and irrigation networks. Documents related to one such transaction reveal how Emami Biotech, a subsidiary of the...

-The Times of India Unjustified judicial intervention could compromise the good the right to information is doing Perhaps the biggest contribution of our Parliament towards promoting greater accountability in independent India is the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. If, as they say, information is power, then the RTI Act has been a veritable 'Brahmastra' in the hands of the Indian public. It has been extremely successful in...

-The Pioneer With an average of 93 crime against SC/STs being reported daily, a number of dalit human rights groups on Thursday urged the Government to amend the SC/STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in the Winter Session of Parliament to ensure speedy trial and higher conviction for such crimes. These groups, united under National Coalition for Strengthening SCs and STs, have approached Congress president Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council and various political...