-The Hindu Why it’s essential that the Supreme Court speedily hears the Aadhaar petitions There are several conflicting accounts of precisely what transpired when senior advocate Shyam Divan made a request late in March for an early hearing of a batch of petitions that question the validity of the unique identification scheme, implemented through the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 — or the Aadhaar...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A clutch of legal amendments the Narendra Modi government has introduced to allow corporate political donors to mask their contributions drags the world's largest democracy against global currents of rising transparency in electoral funding, analysts and activists have warned. From Brazil to Bangladesh, and Croatia to Cyprus, countries of diverse sizes and varied histories with democracy have over the past decade adopted laws and rules aimed at making...

-Scroll.in RTIs filed by Scroll.in show complaints about enrolling agencies demanding bribes and doing fraud enrolments. On Wednesday, the Unique Identification Authority of India said that it had blacklisted the enrolment agency that had inadvertently leaked details of former Indian cricket team captain MS Dhoni’s application to join the Aadhaar programme. The day before, Dhoni’s wife Sakshi had sent a tweet to Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad informing him of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In its drive against tax defaulters, the income tax department published a full-page advertisement in newspapers on Saturday naming 29 individuals and companies, asking them to `pay tax arrears immediately'. Many of these entities are `not traceable' in the department's records or have no assets to recover. The total arrears against them amounts to around Rs 448 crore. It seems the biggest tax defaulters are yet to...

-The Times of India Gurgaon: Only 565 environmental norm violations were reported in Gurgaon and Mewat areas of Aravali Hills between April 1992 and March 2015, and no action has been taken against any officials so far, according to an RTI reply. Of the 565 violations, 524 were filed in the court, which hears complaints that allege violations of environmental norms in Gurgaon and Faridabad areas, while 41 plaints are still pending...