-Hindustan Times Election Commission of India (ECI) is outgunned when it comes to confronting those who circumvent existing campaign finance rules and lacks power to sanction candidates. It is a truism to note that political finance sits at the heart of corruption in modern India. While politicians publicly lament the status quo, they privately profit from the current system. Therefore, the fact that the Narendra Modi government has made reforming political finance...

-Hindustan Times The issue of money in politics is a matter of pressing concern across the democratic world. Recent headlines, for instance, reveal that scandals linked with political finance irregularities dot the globe. In France, former president Nicolas Sarkozy is being investigated on allegations that his 2007 campaign received millions of dollars from late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. In Brazil, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was sentenced to a dozen years...

-Economic and Political Weekly The right to information, much like the right to vote, is rooted in the same fundamental right, with the offices of the chief information commissioner and the chief election commissioner, respectively, operating at the same level of autonomy, towards the Enforcement of these rights. The proposed amendments to the Right to Information Act, which reportedly seek to downgrade the status of the chief information commissioner and information...

-The Hindu Besides the missing informal sector, over-estimation of output growth also offers clues Are the latest employment estimates by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) factually correct? No. They are off the mark, and confined to the economy’s organised or formal sector, accounting at best for 15% of the workforce. Is there a paradox in high output growth rates and the marginal effect on employment? Probably not, if one acknowledges that GDP...

-The Indian Express Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, placed before the bench the written instructions which he had received from the government on the issue of appointment of Lokpal. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought a report from the central government about the appointment of anti-graft ombudsman Lokpal in the country. The top court asked the government to file an affidavit within 10 days mentioning details...