-The Economic Times The Right to Information is no more an aid for the common man. It is fast becoming a potent political tool. Congress has made it its weapon of choice to take on the state governments in Odisha, UP and Punjab while BJP fought its land acquisition battle in Noida last year armed with information collected fromRTI applications. It isn't the Opposition parties alone that politicians gun for. Congress...

-The Hindu Chandigarh: For one Sarabjit Singh, whose death brought politicians to his funeral and financial assistance for his family, the Punjab countryside is dotted with scores of men knocking on the doors of courts seeking compensation for the years many of them spent in Pakistani jails, and recognition of their services as spies for India. Neither the government nor his family has ever acknowledged that Sarabjit - who died this week...

-Live Mint Even as India struggles in efforts to usher in transparency, some panchayats are offering a refreshing contrast Chandana/Jind: Sometime last year, Surendra Singh got a call from a military outpost in Srinagar. The soldier had an urgent inquiry for the 31-year-old sarpanch of Chandana, a village in Haryana's Kaithal district. The man, who hailed from the village, had lost his voter ID card and needed a letter from the...

-Live Mint Despite being declared unconstitutional by SC, ‘khaps' continue to hold sway in parallel with the state machinery Rohtak/Bhiwani: Ravinder Gehlawat and his wife Shilpa had been married for less than four months when they were marched out of their village-Dharana in Jhajjar district of Haryana-by men of the local community and warned never to return. Their fate was sealed on 24 April 2009 when the local khap panchayat, which translates...

-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Wednesday frowned upon official security cover being provided to the rich, saying if the government and police had been alive to providing adequate security to citizens, then 5/6-year-olds would not have been raped in the country. Even though the government's decision to provide paid security cover through CISF personnel to one of the world's richest businessmen, Mukesh Ambani, did not figure specifically during the...