Three non-government members of a central body tasked with the Ganga’s clean-up have quit after accusing the government of “gross negligence” towards the river’s worsening condition. Magsaysay winner Rajendra Singh, Ravi Chopra and Rashid Hyatt Siddiqui have written to Prime Minister manmohan singh, who chairs the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), saying the body has been reduced to a “toothless tiger”. The committee has around 20 members, including senior officials and...

-The Telegraph Around 30 economists, including former NAC member Jean Dreze, today urged Prime Minister manmohan singh to do away with categorisation of beneficiaries under the proposed national food security bill. Dreze, who was part of the Sonia Gandhi-headed council, and the others have written to Singh saying the bill has “serious shortcomings” that needed to be removed. The bill, pending in Parliament, provides for subsidised grain for up to 75 per cent...

Prime Minister manmohan singh can be devastatingly polite: when Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari, who has a commercial interest in agriculture, wrote him a doomsday letter on the dire state of agriculture under UPA rule, Dr. Singh took a month to reply, but when he did, it was to tell the BJP president in excruciating detail about the rise in agricultural production during his tenure in office, which compares...

-The Times of India The Tamil Nadu Bishop Council on Thursday flayed the Centre for targeting the Christian community for the protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project and requested Prime Minister manmohan singh to stop the "harassment". The bishops are pained by the witch hunt, said Archbishop A M Chinnappa.  Speaking to reporters here, the council authorities, including Chinnappa and Tuticorin Archbishop Yvon Ambroise, said no one could stop them from...

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Prime Minister manmohan singh to immediately order an impartial probe into the role of the Chhattisgarh police in the case of alleged torture of tribal teacher Soni Sori, now detained in the Raipur jail on charges of helping Maoists. It wants proper medical facilities provided to the 35-year-old mother, who was tortured so badly that “...two foreign body [sic] recovered of size 2.5 x 1.5...