Yerra Srilakshmi was an IAS topper but has added another feather to her cap, although a dubious one. She is the first woman IAS officer to be arrested for alleged corruption. The 1988-batch officer, held yesterday in connection with the mining case involving the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC), owned by arrested former Karnataka minister and mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy, was today remanded in CBI custody for three days by a local...

Notification of rules is a step forward, but a lot more needs to be done A bunch of children selling toys at a traffic signal, small boys cleaning tables at restaurants or washing glasses at tea shops or little girls engaged as baby sitters – the effective implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, will possibly make such instances a thing of the past. However, for...

The Goa bench of Bombay High Court stretched the RTI Act's ambit to the maximum when it ruled that a governor's report to the Centre about the political situation in a state could not be kept under wraps and ordered its disclosure upon an application under the transparency law.  This has sent shock waves in the power corridors as the Union Cabinet headed by the prime minister relies on the secret...

-India Today   Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh's pet land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement Bill, 2011 has run into major roadblocks in the parliamentary standing committee. Various stakeholders, including farmers' organisations, NGOs and legal experts contend that in its present form, the Bill is an empty shell that exempts 90 per cent major development projects - highways, nuclear plants, mines, SEZs et al-in the name of which, land is being acquired across...

Indian suppliers must be units with investment up to Rs 1.25 cr, says draft before cabinet. Multinational retailers such as Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour looking to open stores in the country may have to source almost a third of their merchandise from small Indian manufacturers as the government tries to make the opening of multi-brand retail to foreign players more politically palatable. The draft cabinet note for permitting 51 per cent foreign...