-IANS   Activists continued to protest outside Tamil Nadu's Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) Friday, preventing employees of the plant from going inside to work.  For the past six days, 106 people have been on fast demanding scrapping of the nuclear power project. The relay fast is being held at Idinthakarai village near Kudankulam in the district, around 650 km from here.  Villagers have surrounded all the entry points to KNPP.  Around 25 employees, forming...

-The Telegraph   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today opposed sharing of certain “privileged” and “secret” matters under the right to information (RTI) law, echoing cabinet colleagues Salman Khurshid and M. Veerappa Moily. “Ministers write to the Prime Minister on a variety of issues. There has to be a concept of secrecy in government,” Ramesh said. According to Ramesh, communications leading to a cabinet decision or a policy decision of the government should be...

-NDTV Profit   Some of India’s biggest and most-respected entrepreneurs have released an open letter to the government. The group which includes Wipro’s Azim Premji, Anu Aga of Thermax and HDFC's Deepak Parekh, refers to the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill that is meant to be introduced soon in Parliament. The industrialists write, “The Lokpal Bill is only one small but critical step in the national task of weeding out the plague of corruption...

The Congress has decided to adopt a cautious approach to suggestions coming from within the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government that the Right to Information (RTI) Act be re-examined as it affects government functioning. On Friday, party spokesperson Manish Tewari — in response to a question whether changes were being contemplated in the seminal Act — stressed it was important for the ongoing debate on the issue “to play itself...

AIDWA wants Planning Commission proposal immediately withdrawn The Planning Commission's proposal for relaxing the ban on sex determination tests has evoked sharp reactions, both for and against. The proposal envisages relaxing the rules for sex determination in foetus but giving incentives to stakeholders and mothers, if it is a girl child, to ensure safe delivery. National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairperson Shantha Sinha says the government should ensure the...