-The Indian Express   For once, Mamata does the right thing — by laying down work rules for her employees Mamata Banerjee’s politics, in a word, could be called “populist”, in the absence of a well-formulated and well-enunciated agenda. In her last years in opposition, and now as chief minister of West Bengal, Banerjee has steadily positioned herself as “more left than the Left”. The Luddite politics of Singur, her stint as the...

The case in Norway relating to the two Indian children who were removed from their parental home raises critical concerns about what is meant by the concept of “best interest” in matters relating to children. The purported findings of the Norway child welfare services — as claimed by the parents, at any rate — that a four-year-old did not have a separate room, that the children did not have appropriate toys...

India seems to have arrived at the threshold of polio eradication, but should it lower its guard? ON January 13, India achieved what had only two years ago seemed impossible in the immediate term. The country, which, given the epidemiological data in the new millennium, had come to be regarded by health experts around the world as one that would be the last to achieve freedom from polio (poliomyelitis), recorded no...

The government appears to be working towards an amicable solution on the question of who can collect biometric information data for the Indian population. There has been disagreement about whether this will be done by the UIDAI headed by Nandan Nilekani, or the National Population Register headed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram. It now seems that both may continue to collect data but share its use. When any country sets about...

The government, the largest owner of landed property in the country, is preparing a comprehensive land sale policy to raise revenues and check corruption in government-owned property deals. The finance ministry will shortly move a cabinet note for bringing in a new uniform policy on 'land alienation' by government agencies, with an eye on removing discretionary powers of individual ministers and bureaucrats, said a government official. In big cities, large tracts...