-The Hindu Not a single case of an offending employer being sent to jail Taking note of the National Human Rights Commission report that 2,780 cases involving about one lakh bonded labourers have been registered, the Supreme Court has ordered a fresh survey by the States to find out the total number of such people still to be rescued from employers. A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra, disposing of a...

-The Hindustan Times Claiming that citizens would be deprived of a transparent and accountable system, activists have vehemently protested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s opinion about the ‘frivolous and vexatious” use of the RTI Act and how it can be a problem for public private partnerships (PPP).   The PM’s remarks followed the Supreme Court and the Central Information Commission’s criticism of frivolous RTI applications. “The RTI Act has been used and owned by the...

-CNN-IBN A kind of McCarthyism seems to be operating in the country. Just as the US Senator who gave the term its name saw communists lurking everywhere in the early 1950s, Arvind Kejriwal sees corruption behind every deal. He wants electricity consumers in Delhi not to pay bills, claiming that they are over-stated. He cites the cut in tariff which the former chairman of Delhi's electricity regulatory commission, Berjinder Singh, had recommended....

-The Hindu India Against Corruption should realise the ‘aam aadmi’ needs not only decentralised power but also a lofty vision There are two underlying themes of India Against Corruption’s new party: the induction of good people and “people’s power” through consummate decentralisation. The vision document sets out a quest for “swaraj,” people’s right to self-determination. This ideal of self-determination has been conflated with direct democracy. Thus the vision document indicates that “as...

-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...