-The Hindu Reservation on the basis of religion has always raised serious constitutional concerns and a recent ruling of the Andhra Pradesh High Court (which the Supreme Court refused to stay) declaring the sub-quota for minorities unconstitutional only illustrates this constitutional tension. This is not the first time that the Andhra Pradesh High Court has declared reservation for religious minorities constitutionally invalid. In 2005, a five-judge-bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court...

The government's attempt to bring transparency in top bureaucracy does not seem to be working with the elite Indian Police Service (IPS) officers. Almost one-fifth of them failed to declare details of their immovable property before expiry of the deadline on Monday, despite repeated reminders issued by the home ministry.  The revised list of officers, who did not submit their Annual Immovable Property Return (AIPR) for the year 2011 by June...

-Live Mint Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has rebuked an industry lobby for selectively using his recent comments on genetically modified cotton “to its advantage.” Ramesh said in a seminar on 12 June that there was a structural shift in India’s cotton economy and a comprehensive study was necessary to understand the relative roles of better irrigation, weather and the availability of different cotton varieties to understand how India had gone on...

-The Hindu Renowned trade union leader Dipankar Mukherjee (69), who passed away on Monday morning, was a brilliant parliamentarian with versatile capabilities. Elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 1994 from West Bengal as a Communist Party of India (Marxist) member, Mr. Mukherjee played an important role in intervening in all crucial economic and industrial policy-related issues during his 12-year-long parliamentary stint till 2006. Born in June 1943 in Kolkata, Mr. Mukherjee had...

-The Hindu Witnesses who have testified against Janardhan Reddy and his men fear the mining baron's release from jail A torrent of calls flooded the CBI unit in Bangalore when T. Pattabhi Ramarao, the CBI judge in distant Hyderabad, granted bail to the jailed mining baron, G. Janardhan Reddy, on May 11. Many of the frantic calls were from the 300-plus witnesses painstakingly persuaded by the CBI-Bangalore to testify in the case registered...