The newly floated Left Front, comprising CPI, CPM and CPI-ML (Liberation), is contesting the state assembly polls on the plank of land reforms and "bataidari (sharecropping)". The leaders of the three parties made a joint appeal to the people at the Janshakti Bhawan here on Sunday to vote for Left candidates in view of the fact that the Congress, RJD and NDA had failed to deliver the goods. CPI national executive member...

This time in Uttar Pradesh, panchayat elections — the first phase starts Monday — are being fought with an intensity never seen before. Eight persons have already died in poll-related violence over the past 15 days. All the trappings of a typical poll are there — hoardings; free flow of liquor, money and clothes for voters; and candidates moving about in SUVs. “So much money and violence was seen neither in the...

Elsewhere, people may be obsessed with the Commonwealth Games, but games of a different kind are being played in UP villages these days. Panchayat elections in UP are round the corner and these are being fought with an intensity not seen before. The poll are still three days away and at least eight persons have lost their lives in the last 15 days in the polls-related violence. Hoardings dot countryside; feasts...

District-level committees also to scrutinise any instances of ‘paid news' The constitution of an Expenditure Monitoring Division in the Election Commission of India indicates that the ECI is stepping up its efforts to tackle ‘paid news' and other abuses of money power during elections. The 2009 elections, to the Lok Sabha and to some State legislatures, saw a spate of complaints as millions of rupees were spent by powerful political parties...

It's been nearly a year since the ‘paid news' syndrome — an appalling industry-wide violation of media ethics and a media-related electoral malpractice — was brought to people's attention by a section of the media. The issue still remains in the public domain, drawing critical comment and protest every now and then. The large-scale practice of paid news, particularly during the run-up to elections, has the potential of misleading the...