-The Hindu     Even a cursory look at how Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have fared will tell us how the mere formation of a smaller State is no guarantee for better lives for those groups for whom these States have been created Smaller States have been the new political mode of addressing basic issues that were otherwise left unresolved. However, fighting for a new state and reconstructing on a more sustainable democratic content...

-The Business Standard A sting, Operation Prime Minister, by a TV news channel had said opinion polls could be manipulated by research agencies The Election Commission (EC) of India cannot ban opinion polls ahead of elections; all it can do is remind the Union government about its long-pending request. And, this is what India's highest poll-conducting body is planning to do, following a TV news channel's sting operation code-named ‘Operation Prime Minister', which...

-The Business Standard The economic logic - and political reasons - behind the giant shift of spending power to the states Interim Budgets are not supposed to do this. This is precisely what they are not supposed to do. They are not supposed to lay out a policy change so vast it disempowers the next central government. But that's what P Chidambaram has done - and it appears to have been...

-The Hindu There is little transparency in the regularisation of unauthorised colonies in Delhi Earlier this week, acting on behalf of the Delhi government, the Chief Minister wrote a letter to the President asking for a probe against the former Chief Minister, reportedly for "alleged irregularities in the regularisation of unauthorised colonies in Delhi". This follows the Delhi Lokayukta's finding in November 2013 that the "issuance of the PRC [provisional regularisation certificates]...

-PTI NEW DELHI: With proceedings in parliament remaining disrupted, the government was unable to introduce the street vendors bill - a pet legislation of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi - in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday when opposition MPs objected to introducing bills in the din. The upper house, which witnessed repeated adjournments, met at 2pm still amid din when Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Girija Vyas sought the permission of...