When the fledgling Indian government drafted its higher education policy after Independence, it formed two separate tiers for teaching and research: colleges and universities in one, exclusive research establishments in the other. The intention was of the noblest, to deploy our best talent exclusively to create an indigenous knowledge pool; in particular, to provide research input for the nation’s development. Sixty years down the line, the outcome has patently failed those...

India has persisted in retaining the death penalty, notwithstanding the fact that 139 countries across the world have already abolished it while 150 others have put a moratorium on it. The United Nations passed a resolution on September 20, 2010, appealing to all nations to observe a moratorium on the death penalty if they are not agreeable to passing a legislation abolishing it. That formidable opposition to the death penalty seemed...

Student of Pune-based MIT School of Government (MITSOG), Harshvardhan Reddy, who hails from Karni village in Mahabubnagar district in Andhra Pradesh, has kept the Right to Information (RTI) flag flying high by filing over 300 RTI applications along with over 200 first appeals within a short span of two years. The first RTI application, Reddy said, was filed by him against the rural superintendent of police (SP) for delaying his passport...

-PTI Urgency clause can be invoked by the government only in exceptional cases after "applying its mind", the Supreme Court has ruled while quashing acquisition of land by the Delhi administration for a housing project in Rohini.  The apex court said the burden of justifying acquisition by invoking the urgency clause under Section 17(1)(4) of Land Acquisition Act solely rests on the government as otherwise it amounts to depriving a person of...

-The Times of India   Providing fodder to the CBIprobing the various land allotments in the state during the YSR government, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has concluded that the Andhra Pradesh government doled out thousands of acres of government land to private individuals on an ad hoc and arbitrary manner without safeguarding the interests of the state. The CAG report for the year ending March 31, 2011, was tabled in...