Sweeping changes in the rules to enforce the law governing foreign contributions can make it easier for the government to put advocacy groups on a tight leash. Easily branded as having a political nature, they will have to run to the home ministry every time they want to receive foreign funds. The rules drafted by the ministry cover NGOs that comment on “political activities” and “habitually” employ common methods of political...

Ratnagiri Collector Madhukar Gaikwad has denied permission for the two-day Independent People's Tribunal ‘public hearing' on the Jaitapur nuclear power project proposed to be held on March 6 and 7 at Niveli, one of the affected villages. Deepika D'Souza of the Tribunal said that Mr. Gaikwad, in a letter on Friday, refused permission as per orders from the police. No grounds for disallowing the meeting were given, she said. Ms. D'Souza said...

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been removed as the managing director of Grameen Bank, the organisation he founded in Bangladesh in 1983 to help the poor. The central bank has cited a rule that requires retirement at 60 to order the ouster of the 70-year-old “banker to the poor” who has been embroiled in a Norwegian funds scandal. Yunus had also fallen out with the political establishment after, fresh from the Nobel...

Larry Summers, the recently departed Chairman of US President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, posed the following question before his trip to India last November: “What is the self-perception of the Congress as a political party?” In fact, this broad question provokes three specific ones in the domain of economics. Is the Congress the party of Jagdish Bhagwati or Amartya Sen; Nehru or Indira Gandhi; or Aruna Roy or Nandan...

About one crore girls vanish every year through foeticide or other forms of killing, Governor of Uttarakhand Margaret Alva said here on Wednesday. She was addressing a seminar on women's rights here organised by Congress leader Janet D Souza's non-governemental organisation ‘Parivartan.' “We call it the disappearing sex. One crore girls die every year or are not allowed [to be born],” Ms. Alva said. On the issue of ‘honour killings,' she...