-Outlook Chennai: Describing the HRD Ministry's Model School Scheme initiative as yet another instance of Centre's interference in state rights, DMK president M Karunanidhi today asked the Tamil Nadu government to take up the matter with the Centre. The scheme envisages setting up 2500 model schools under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode in educationally backward blocks in the country. With Union HRD Ministry inviting proposals from interested private entities, state government had been...

-The Hindu The Election Commission might be well-intentioned in seeking to ban opinion polls in the run-up to an election, but the move does not seem to be sound in law, and is certainly not desirable in practice. The reasoning for a ban is that opinion polls influence voters prior to polling, and therefore the results of such polls should be withheld until after the end of voting. Needless to say,...

-The Hindu Officials told not to act on oral orders from political executive To insulate the bureaucracy from political interference and to put an end to frequent transfers of civil servants by political bosses, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Centre and the States to set up a Civil Services Board (CSB) for the management of transfers, postings, inquiries, process of promotion, reward, punishment and disciplinary matters. A Bench of Justices K.S....

-The Indian Express Internal migration has risen, and for good reason. Policy must shift to support internal mobility, not control it. As India undergoes the transition from a predominantly rural society to one that is urbanising rapidly, there are inevitable flows of people from rural to urban areas. One set of perspectives tells us that this increase in mobility should not be unexpected; after all, classical modernisation and economic development theories do...

India's landmark Right to Information Legislation is called the biggest single step since independence to build transparency in governance. However, its remarkable success is owed only to just 0.3 per cent of Indians who file RTI applications. It's anybody's guess as to what would be the impact if even one or two per cent of Indians began to ask tough questions to hold their rulers accountable. It is noteworthy that...