-People's Democracy IT seems the Sheila Dixit government of Delhi, backed by powerful elements in the UPA-2 central government, will let nothing stand in the way of water privatisation in the capital. Several earlier attempts going back many years to fully or partially privatise distribution of water, especially the big loan application to the World Bank in 2005, were foiled by vigilant community organisations, public interest groups, trade unions and political...

-PTI The government has put a word limit of 500 words for filing an application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Besides this, a new format has been devised for filing an appeal to the Central Information Commission under the transparency law. The government has also made it mandatory for an appellant or his authorised representative to appear before the CIC either in person or through video-conferencing, according to new rules notified...

-The Telegraph Fareed Zakaria, long thought of by New Delhi’s leadership as the first American secretary of state of Indian origin in the future, fell from grace yesterday when Time suspended his column in the weekly magazine for plagiarism. CNN, where Zakaria is a star Sunday morning international affairs television host, followed suit with a statement that he wrote a blog post on CNN.com “which included similar unattributed excerpts. That blog post...

-The Economic Times The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India's overseas intelligence agency, has told the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate that it has unearthed hawala transactions allegedly linked to former telecom minister A Raja.  RAW has written to the investigative agencies - the communication was sent at the end of July - asking them to take "necessary action", a top government official told ET on condition of anonymity.  The...

-The Hindu Public Interest Litigation is a good thing when it is used to enforce the rights of the disadvantaged. But it has now been diluted to interfere with the power of the government to take decisions on a range of policy matters Judicial activism is not an easy concept to define. It means different things to different persons. Critics denounce judicial decisions as activist when they do not agree with them....