Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai in his address to recruits at the National Police Academy sought to enlist them in his campaign. BAGEHOT'S classic explains why and how a genre of civil servants mushroomed in India latterly as executive power, authority and prestige declined. None of them had earlier revealed a particularly strong spine. T.N. Seshan bared his traits once he was appointed Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). Others need not...

Infant deaths resulting from a recent clinical trial in India have led to a media outcry. But few have considered how explosive these revelations actually are, or the problematic use and application of the Right to Information Act. When India’s Right to Information Act came into force in 2005, the legislation’s text acknowledged the conflict that could arise from revealing certain information, pointing out that there was a need to ‘harmonise’...

-Kashmir Observer   New Delhi’s claims of the AFSPA not standing in the way of justice for victims of forces’ atrocities in Kashmir have been exposed further by civil society Activism.squeezing incriminating data out of the government.    With public organisations asserting almost 8000 enforced disappearances among innumerably more human rights violations at the hands of the central armed forces and the state police in Kashmir in the past two decades, the state...

-IANS   Two resignations and one more in the offing? The core group behind India Against Corruption (IAC) led by Anna Hazare is likely to be whittled down further with Delhi archbishop Vincent M Concessao distancing himself from the movement, sources said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Magsaysay award winner Rajendra Singh and Gandhian activist P V Rajagopal quit the original 26-member panel citing the political Activism.of Arvind Kejriwal and other leaders of...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today reached out to India’s civil society and sought to be in sync with the restive public mood worldwide. Singh warmly appreciated “Anna Hazareji’s movement”, condemning the physical attacks on Team Anna members in recent days, sympathised with the sentiments of the Occupy Wall Street protests and praised the role of the judiciary as central to India’s democracy. In a wide-ranging interaction with journalists on his flight home...