The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is under pressure from several quarters. One such source of pressure is the rural rich whose concerns were recently voiced by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, when he raised the bogey of shortage of supply of farm workers because of the employment guarantee scheme. The fact is that the national average for workdays generated under the scheme is less than half of the...

-The Hindu   In a historic first, a special court in Gujarat has convicted and awarded life sentences to as many as 31 mostly high caste, landed Patels for burning alive 33 Muslims — the majority of them women and children — of Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. The village was among numerous Muslim habitations targeted across the State by irate Hindu mobs as part of a pogrom ruthlessly executed in the...

Judges are fierce in using the word [“independence”] as a sword to take action in contempt against critics. But the word is also used as a shield to cover a multitude of sins, some venial and others not so venial. Any lawyer practising before a court will, I am sure, have a rather long list of these. I have chosen seven. The first is the sin of “brushing under the carpet”,...

-The Times of India   Disappointed by Bihar's Lokayukta bill, Team Anna has described it as a "copy" of the Centre's Lokpal draft. Activist Arvind Kejriwal said the team hoped that chief minister Nitish Kumar, who had on June 30 promised Team Anna that he would enact a strong Lokayukta law, brings a strong bill on the lines of the one passed by Uttarakhand assembly. "Bihar government's proposed Lokayukta bill is a...

-The Hindustan Times   Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's attempt to amend the state Lokayukta bill in a bid to give more powers to the anti-graft watchdog in the state has failed to impress social activist Anna Hazare's team. Key Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said the Bihar government's draft bill was a "copy of the much-criticised" Centre's Lokpal bill. "We sincerely wish that Nitish Kumar ji brings a strong Lokayukta...