-PTI   The Gujarat government has made a request to the Centre not to ban Endosulfan, an agriculture pesticide found to be an organic pollutant, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said in the Rajya Sabha on Friday. Answering questions, he said production, sale and use of Endosulfan has been banned by Supreme Court, through an interim order, on May 13 in the country. “What the Supreme Court said, we will oblige,” he said. In reply to...

-IANS   A sum of Rs.44.23 lakh was recovered as penalty from central public information officers in the last four years for failing to provide information under the Right to Information (RTI), the Rajya Sabha was informed Thursday. "A sum of Rs.2,21,56,363 was collected as fees from RTI applicants by central public authorities over the period from 2007-08 to 2010-11 while over Rs.44 lakh was recovered as penalty," Minister of State for...

-CNN-IBN   Is Team Anna divided over bringing the Prime Minister under Lokpal's ambit? Two of Anna Hazare supporters - Swami Agnivesh and Arvind Kejriwal - have divergent views on the issue pointing towards a difference in opinion among the civil society members on the issue. "It is not a very sticky point for us. Corruption at the lower level of bureaucracy is the first and the foremost which concerns the common people...

Beware of what you put in your Facebook messages or your tweets. Your friends and followers may not be the only ones reading them. Chances are government sleuths would be vetting these private messages. This follows a home ministry directive to the department of telecom, asking it to "ensure effective monitoring of Twitter and Facebook". While "effective monitoring" has not been defined, sources said the MHA's intention is complete surveillance of...

Just when they seem to be hurtling towards confrontation, Congress has successfully reached out to the Anna Hazare camp, persuading the civil society activists to appear before the standing committee on law and justice. Activist Arvind Kejriwal confirmed to TOI that he along with his colleagues have accepted the invite from the parliamentary panel led by Congress's Abhishek Singhvi and will attend the deliberations on Wednesday. Gandhian Anna Hazare, former law...