-The Hindu The UPA seems to have forgotten that the country's trade commitments, including to the WTO, stand in the way of its implementing the Food Security Ordinance The last time I began an essay with the words "in this era of globalisation," in high school, even my teacher winced at the cliché. In junking the phrase, however, we may have forgotten its import too. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) certainly seems...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: As rights groups upped the ante over the sheer insensitivity displayed by Delhi Police in issuing a fund raising advertisement, "depicting a vulnerable child as a future criminal", the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) shot a notice to the Police Commissioner on Monday, demanding that the department take immediate steps to control the damage done with "the highly negative depiction of the image...

-The Hindu Making the Gross Domestic Product the sole measure of national development for many years has left Indians with a natural environment that is among the most polluted in the world. Regardless of that dismal outcome, and in spite of settled law that polluters should pay, the Centre and State governments continue to balk at stronger enforcement of environmental laws. New evidence from a study by the Tata Institute of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Finding tension still simmering in Haryana's Mirchpur village more than three years after dalit houses were torched resulting in a handicapped girl and her father getting burnt to death, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the state, "Who is dividing society on caste lines?" The Haryana government's counsel answered, "The powerful and those in power." The question from a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and V...

-The Hindu Building on the work by RTI activists, India needs to set up a mechanism that can make for accountability on the sources and utilisation of party funds Throughout the world, political parties collect funds to build and sustain the organisation, to train party cadres and fight elections. Recognising that they are the main link to the citizens (as voters) and, by implication, the mainstay of democracy, many countries, including India,...