-The Hindu Court rulings on freebies, elections and caste-based rallies, and the CIC order on political parties are a beginning towards cleansing politics but whether they can achieve the desired result is debatable The slew of judgments from the higher judiciary in the period of just about a month or so has been like manna from heaven on the parched earth of electoral reforms. First, the Supreme Court frowned upon freebies, which...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Chhapra tragedy must ask us how we can improve public services, not scrap them altogether. In the aftermath of the ghastly tragedy in Chhapra, Bihar, where 22 children lost their lives after they consumed a government-provided school meal containing organophosphate pesticides, we must demand of the State a far greater commitment to administering large-scale welfare programmes that are meant to improve, not destroy the life of citizens....

-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,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A wife will have a share in her husband's inherited or inheritable marital property on divorce, though the exact quantum of the compensation has been left to the discretion of the judge, according to a Legislation that was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday. The Cabinet also cleared the proposal that in cases where divorce has been sought on mutual consent of both parties the...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Assam today took a step towards becoming the first state in the country to ban all smokeless tobacco products with the state government tabling a bill in the Assembly to this effect. The Assam Health (Prohibition of Manufacturing, Advertisement, Trade, Storage, Distribution, Sale and Consumption of Zarda, Gutkha, Panmasala, etc, Containing Tobacco) Bill, 2013, which was introduced in the Assembly by health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma,...