-Outlook Transparency promotes democracy, more the reason for political parties to come under RTI Act's purview There was great public outrage when legislators in Mumbai beat up an assistant police inspector because he stopped an MLA's car for speeding on the Bandra-Worli sealink. The sentiment was: What arrogance! How can lawmakers have so little respect for the laws they themselves made? However, the amendment in Parliament aimed at removing political parties...
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World saved some 90 million children but likely to miss global target, UN agency reports
-The United Nations Global and national efforts to end preventable deaths of children under-five years of age saved some 90 million lives in the past two decades, but at the current rate, a universal promise to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 will not be reached, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported today. "Yes, we should celebrate the progress," said Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director. "But how can we celebrate...
More »Poverty a mitigating ground to convert death to life sentence: SC -Dhananjay Mahapatra
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: More than three decades after carving out 'rarest of rare' category of cases warranting award of death penalty, the Supreme Court found a new mitigating factor - poverty -- to commute a convict's death penalty to life imprisonment. "Poverty, socio-economic, psychic compulsions, undeserved adversities in life are thus some of the mitigating factors, in addition to those indicated in Bachan Singh and Machi Singh cases," said...
More »LS passes bill for street vendors
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The goons and police can hang their heads in shame. Together, for once. The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha today with overwhelming support, with almost every speaker narrating how the police and criminals harass hawkers. The debate wove a tragic tale of exploitation and neglect of the poorest "entrepreneurs" of society while powerful support systems were available...
More »Charge of the unenlightened brigade-AK Shiva Kumar
-The Hindu Jagdish Bhagwati's attacks on Amartya Sen are based on a series of misattributions and obscure the real issues on which the two economists differ Rich and lively public debates are the raison d'être of any democracy. But the recent attacks by Professor Jagdish Bhagwati on Dr. Amartya Sen confound the real issues on which Sen and Bhagwati differ. Bhagwati tries to position himself as a proponent of growth that would benefit...
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