Putting aside their earlier differences, the teams of social activists Anna Hazare and Aruna Roy have broadly agreed to come together on the anti-graft lokpal bill ahead of Parliament’s winter session, which begins next week. The development followed a series of meetings between Hazare-led India Against Corruption and Roy’s National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) to narrow down their differences on the bill. Both sides confirmed the development. “We had...

The govt has thus rejected the recommendation of the parliamentary standing committee on finance that the 26% FDI cap be a part of the Bill The cabinet on Wednesday cleared amendments to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill, 2011, capping the overseas investment limit in the sector at 26%, but retaining the flexibility to raise this limit by stating that it would not form a part of the legislation. The...

The parliamentary panel examining the Lokpal bill is learnt to have formulated a five-stage mechanism that separates investigation from prosecution, and maintains “equilibrium in the holy trinity” of CBI, CVC and the proposed Lokpal. On the question of whether to include the prime minister in the Lokpal’s purview, opinion in the standing committee, sources said, has narrowed to two points of view: keeping the PM out and, including the PM with...

-PTI   The lead auditor of the 2G telecom audit today stuck to his stand that the loss due to spectrum allocation was Rs 2,645 crore and he had signed the final report on the alleged scam on the direction of his superiors. Appearing before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) going into the 2G issue, RP Singh, the then Director General, Audit (Post and Telecommunication), said quantification of loss was not part of...

Two stories on two days, both from Delhi and both shocking in their revelations. Both involved child abuse. The first story was about a university professor on the run, allegedly after it came to light that he had employed a 10-year-old boy in his house, and worse, regularly beat him. The second story was even more mind-numbing in its details. Sanjana (name changed to protect identity), a 14-year-old girl, is...