-The Hindu The Congress has steered clear of any debate on the AFSPA, leaving a politically untenable choice for the next government: repeal the Act or leave it untouched With its recent decision to extend the implementation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Manipur by another year, the United Progressive Alliance's opportunistic posturing on the legislation has come full circle. The UPA's rendezvous with the AFSPA began months after it...

-PTI Taking cognisance of reports on destruction of files by officials, CIC today issued summons to Delhi Chief Secretary to present their inquiry report into the alleged incident before it and barred destruction of any record held by any GNCT department till further orders. Information Commissioner M Sridhar Acharyulu also directed the Chief Secretary D M Spolia to initiate criminal action against officials, who were found to be involved in the destructions...

-The Hindu     They used a legal loophole to violate environmental norms Ninety-four of the 192 iron ore mining leases in Odisha do not have the mandatory environmental clearances. And of the 96 that did have them, 75 have mined far beyond their permitted levels over the past several years, the Justice M.B. Shah Commission report on illegal iron and manganese ore mining has said. The Hindu has accessed parts of the report,...

-PTI NEW DELHI: A day after Rahul Gandhi made a strong pitch for more legislations to weed out corruption, activists on Sunday demanded convening of a special session of Parliament to pass bills dealing with graft at the grass-roots level. "Just a Lokpal Bill is not enough. It is actually one part of many that have to come together. To our mind, the Grievance Redress Bill is 'Aam Aadmi Ka Lokpal'," said...

-Live Mint India needs a law to check the menace of communal and caste violence. The arguments against it are spurious Among free India's gravest failures-along with its inability to end hunger, pervasive poverty and discrimination-is the continued targeting of people with violence and arson only because of their faith or caste. This periodic blood-letting, mass sexual assault and arson leaves a trail of great suffering of innocents, and repeated assaults...