-The Hindu The Gujarat snooping incident should be used as an opportunity to ask how the government has assumed the power to order such invasive, unchecked surveillance. On November 15, a pair of investigative portals released a set of audio transcripts depicting an extraordinarily invasive and scrupulous surveillance of a young woman by the Gujarat Police. Its implications, limited as they may appear to those who consider privacy a besmirched value, in...

-The Hindustan Times The current electoral discourse shows an amazing disconnect with the actual reality of the deteriorating livelihood conditions of our people. The other day, the BJP PM aspirant thundered in Bangalore that the BJP seeks to create confidence and not fear among the people. The 2002 Gujarat communal pogrom makes this sound incredulous. There is nothing in the BJP's campaign pitch that offers any solution or a methodology for...

-The Hindu     While it is apparent that due process has been subverted to the advantage of a few by the political executive, it is equally true that there has been some politicisation of the civil service Two recent events have focussed attention on the relationship between the political executive and public servants. At the international conference on corruption organised by the Central Bureau of Investigation on November 11, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court, which on Tuesday ordered compulsory registration of First Information Reports, noted that the burking (suppression) of crime might itself be in the range of 60 lakh cases every year. Quoting figures from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a five-judge Constitution Bench, said: "Registration of FIRs leads to less manipulation in criminal cases and lessens incidents of ‘antedated' FIR or deliberately delayed FIR." The NCRB figures showed that...

-PTI The CIC cannot leave the disposal of complaint filed by an RTI applicant on the public authority as it is obligatory for the panel to decide on merit of the plea, Delhi High Court has held. Hearing a complaint filed by an activist, Justice V K Jain said it was obligatory for the Central Information Commission to decide a complaint on its merit instead of simply directing the Central Public Information...