-The Times of India Sparrows have become so rare in the capital that it seems not even Delhi's environment department can identify it correctly. The department's ad campaign on the occasion of World Sparrow Day on Wednesday carried a picture of the Eurasian tree sparrow, which is neither found in Delhi nor in most parts of India, mistaking it for the house sparrow. It was an ironic reflection of the plight of...

-PTI In a peculiar case, the Central Information Commission could not punish some CBI officials for a delayed response on an RTI application seeking information on Commonwealth Games related corruption cases as the persons concerned were "no longer in service". During a hearing of a complaint filed by Delhi advocate Vivek Garg, Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra said no penalty was imposed on the officials with CBI's Anti Corruption Branch (ACB),...

Groups from across India gathered in Delhi recently to assess the Forest Rights Act’s journey since 2006. The law is often dubbed as ‘landmark’ because it ended the age-old illegality surrounding communities living in forest areas by entitling them to individual and community land title. It also went beyond the colonial paradigms of the forest bureaucracy to recognise community efforts at protecting and preserving forests. Numerous groups and individuals working...

-Groundviews.org Nearly four years since the end of the country’s civil war, Sri Lanka remains a divided, post-war society, as the ethnic conflict burns on. It has been fifteen months since the Final Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was made public. In July 2012, the GoSL released an Action Plan to implement the LLRC recommendations, yet little progress has been made on this front. Instead, a host of...

-The Economic Times Finance Minister P Chidambaram has warned corporate bigwigs against wilful defaults, reminding promoters that it was their duty to bring in additional capital if their companies got into trouble. "We cannot have an affluent promoter and a sick company," he said, in an apparent reference to the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines, owned by the flamboyant Vijay Mallya. Banks are stuck with nearly Rs 7,000 crore worth of loans they...