-The Indian Express With the Union cabinet having approved the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011 (hereafter referred to as the GR bill), Parliament has an opportunity to enact a law that would give citizens a way in which to hold government functionaries accountable. An effective GR act has the potential to transform the relationship between an ordinary Indian...

-The Hindustan Times Enacted in 1958 to deal with the Naga uprising in the then composite state of Assam, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) was reviewed by the Justice BP Jeevan Reddy Committee in 2005, which recommended that it be scrapped.   The Reddy report remains untabled in Parliament, despite the recent outcry, triggered by the Justice Verma Committee’s view that the Act needs to be reviewed (in the light...

-The Hindu Citizens march from Vrindavan to Delhi to demand a right to their lifeline – the Yamuna Why are thousands marching presently from Vrindavan to Delhi? Not for jobs, special privileges or land rights. But for their lifeline river Yamuna, which for many of them is integral to their daily chores, as to them the river is much more than a mere physical entity. It is well known that the folklore associated...

-The Hindu TIRUNELVELI: The Kudankulam police have registered a case in connection with, what they felt, a “suspicious money transfer” from London to Kudankulam. The police said T. Ambika, wife of anti-Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project activist Kumar alias Thavasi Kumar, had recently received Rs. 29,98,782 in her account with Canara Bank’s Kudankulam Banch from Anand based in the United Kingdom. As the bank officials informed the police about the huge deposit in the...

-The Business Standard Report says ineligible farmers given benefits In a fresh blow to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has rapped the finance ministry over allegedly serious lapses in implementation of the Rs 71,680-crore agricultural debt waiver and debt relief scheme — a major plank on which the coalition had contested the 2009 general elections. A report tabled in Parliament today showed CAG, after auditing 22.32...