Institutions the bill proposes to set up are not adequately independent of the government The government is reported to be making efforts to seek a consensus amongst its allies and the opposition parties on the Lokpal Bill that is awaiting approval of the Rajya Sabha. People’s movements and some of the main opposition parties have objected to various provisions of the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill, 2011, as passed in the winter...

-The Telegraph Vice-President and Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari has suggested that meetings of parliamentary standing committees should be open to public or televised live, as in many western democracies. Such panels do “excellent work” but remain unsung, Ansari said as he made the proposal at a two-day orientation programme for new entrants to the Rajya Sabha that began yesterday. He said he had discussed the issue with MPs. But some of the...

Muslim women may finally get their due share in family inheritance. The long standing demand of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board for a suitable amendment in the UP Zamindari Abolition and Land Reform Act 1950 to bring it at par with the Shariat is likely to get an official nod soon. After AIMPLB reasserted its stance last month, the state government is considering the option to push through...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s statement in Parliament that the Government plans to shift subsidies from chemical fertilizers to organic manures has finally earned him some admiration from grassroots organisations working with small and marginal farmers in the country’s vast dry-lands. Pawar’s statement, if translated into policy action, may go a long way in improving the condition of some of India’s poorest farmers in the rain-fed areas which account for...

The row over a cartoon featuring Dalit leader Ambedkar shows a lack of critical thinking in the Indian polity. The cartoon by Shankar Pillai that caused such pandemonium in the Indian Parliament on 11 May 2012 when various Dalit and non-Dalit members demanded its omission from a Class IX textbook was originally published in 1949. It depicts Dalit leader Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar with a whip riding a snail entitled ‘Constitution’...