Election Commission of India (ECI) has initiated a move to check insertion of "paid news" items in the print and electronic media by political parties and candidates during elections. State chief electoral officers (CEOs) have been directed to form a committee in each district for the purpose. The move assumes significance in view of the fact that assembly elections are round the corner in Bihar. The practice of getting advertorials...

Rural television viewers who want more than the half-an-hour of Krishi Darshan daily, there is good news. It may soon be beamed 24x7. The rural development ministry has decided to launch a 24-hour channel for India’s large rural population to make them “adequately aware” of the government’s umpteen schemes. Krishi Darshan would be the model — the proposed channel’s programmes would deal with agriculture, land, water and sanitation. But “it will have...

Banks have designated red zones where the vast majority of Muslim clusters fall. This fact is confirmed by the rash of banking-related complaints received by the National Commission for Minorities. A little over a year ago, Ali Arshad, a resident of Okhla in Delhi, went to a well-known private sector bank to open a bank account. He thought his case would be fast-tracked because he had a banking background, he worked...

Journalists have come under increasing attacks in Orissa over the past year, caught between aggressive industrialists, political corruption and competitive media houses. “There have been 12 physical attacks on reporters, stringers or camera persons this year, and six cases of threat and intimidation, up from three attacks in 2009,” says a special report brought out by the Free Speech Hub, an initiative of the Media Foundation. With the State being on...

AS CONCERN for the ecosystem runs high all across the world, a small, mountainous state in India’s northeast — Sikkim, has taken a step ahead and declared to go completely organic by the year 2015. What this means is the total phasing out of chemical inputs from agriculture. Sikkim has long been an ecologically conscious state with initiatives such as a comprehensive ban on plastic, bio-medical and chemical waste in...