-The Telegraph   The Union cabinet today approved the Lokpal bill after overruling Manmohan Singh, who again advocated bringing the Prime Minister within the corruption ombudsman’s ambit. The higher judiciary, conduct of MPs inside Parliament, and the lower bureaucracy too have been kept out of the Lokpal’s jurisdiction. Anna Hazare, whose civil society group had insisted on all these sections and the Prime Minister being included, termed the draft a “cruel joke” and...

India's Internet community is upset over a recent set of rules under the country's Information Technology Act of 2008 that aims to regulate content on the Web. Used as to much freedom as they are, cyber activists – who include bloggers, tweeters and free-thinking Net freaks – are understandably upset. The rules say that anything libelous, grossly harmful, hateful, racist or ethnically objectionable or disparaging will be covered by the rules....

Government has redefined what constitutes poverty A nationwide survey that will simultaneously map the economic, caste and religious backgrounds of the entire population was approved by the Union Cabinet on Thursday. The survey marks two firsts: firstly, in a break with past practice, the Below Poverty Line (BPL) Census has been widened to include urban areas; earlier, it was restricted to rural India. Secondly, the caste headcount, which will be conducted simultaneously...

Even as the formation of the 13-member regulatory body to monitor television content in channels is in its final stages, the government is keen to retain the final say as far as content goes. "The regulatory body, the Broadcast Content Complaints Council (BCCC), will be ready by the first week of May. It will get 21 days to act on any complaint. The information  and broadcasting ministry will wait-and-watch over...

I remember being disturbed enough to stop watching the 2003 Hindi movie Matrubhumi(motherland). Set in the future, it depicted an Indian village populated only by men. It gets that way after a man, yearning for a boy, publicly drowns his newborn girl in a vat of milk, sparking a custom that wipes out women. So the men watch porn, fornicate with farm animals. A father marries his five sons to...