-Live Mint Electoral reforms are not the forte of law ministers. But they can avoid damaging a battered system The resignation of Ashwani Kumar as law minister has brought cheer to a group of people who do not have much to do, at least directly, with the coal block allocation controversy. These are people working on electoral reforms. This is because ever since becoming law minister, Kumar had been consistent in his...

-IANS Guwahati: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh does not have any cash in hand and owns a 1996 Maruti car, unlike many of his colleagues. This was revealed by the affidavit he submitted to the returning officer in Assam on Wednesday while filing his nomination papers for the forthcoming Rajya Sabha elections. Manmohan Singh stated that his total annual income is Rs 40,51,964. The Prime Minister also declared his total movable assets to be...

-The Hindu   Top civil society bodies are challenging the government's ‘counter-affidavit' in the Paid News case which seeks to gut the Election Commission's powers In a major twist to the Ashok Chavan vs. Madhav Kinhalkar legal battle (more notorious as the "Paid News" scandal), leading civil society organisations and eminent individuals have approached the Supreme Court to implead themselves into the case. Their intervention application, moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan, minces no words...

-The Economic Times The Supreme Court may have called upon the " caged parrot" Central Bureau of Investigation to free itself from the interference of the executive, but the dependence of the agency on its several masters in the government makes it easier said than done. The ministries of home, personnel, law and finance can all be construed as the masters of CBI in one way or the other, given the decisive...

Statesman News Service KOLKATA: The whole perception of the state government about availability of security forces is unreliable, State Election Commission counsel Samaraditya Pal submitted before Mr Justice Biswanath Somaddar of Calcutta High Court on the last day of the hearing of the challenge to some provisions of the West Bengal Panchayat Election Act today. The judgment of the case will be delivered expeditiously, Mr Justice Somaddar said. Earlier, citing...