Why did they attack Team Anna man Prashant Bhushan? In the twisted mind of Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, it was some sort of glorious act. “God give us the power to complete our mission,” he tweeted before it. The mission: a coward’s attack on eminent lawyer and human rights activist Prashant Bhushan by Bagga and two of his friends, Inder Verma and Vishnu Gupta. On October 13, the three men...

-The Hindu   It should not hit deliberative processes and thwart honest officials from airing views Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for a ‘critical look' at the Right to Information (RTI) Act to ensure that it does not adversely affect the ‘deliberative processes' of the government and discourage honest officials from articulating their views. Addressing the 6th Annual Convention of Information Commissioners here on Friday, Dr. Singh hoped that the deliberations would also...

As a national debate rages over the Indian poverty line, in the heart of Bandra, one of Mumbai’s richest suburbs, in a shanty with barely enough standing space for two adults, three-year-old Priya Doiphode, clad in a red tee shirt, lies listless on a string bed. Priya is one of the 83,243 children in Mumbai who are malnourished, according to government data, a statistic that makes Mumbai the most malnourished...

Contributory factors: coal shortage, overdrawal by States, early winter and of course, Telangana agitation The country is facing a severe shortage of electricity. Coal shortage in power plants and heavy overdrawal by some States have aggravated the crisis, especially during the festive months. In addition, the setting in of winter has led to a decline in hydro power production. In the South, the Telangana agitation has badly hit power supplies in Andhra...

-The Business Standard Yes, it will help combat the acute shortage of farm labour, but it goes against the Act’s core principles. Devinder Sharma  Food and agricultural policy analyst The crisis in agriculture has worsened and it is directly proportionate to the spread of MNREGA Isn’t it strange? The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which was primarily designed as a radical and novel response to combat rural poverty, is actually hitting the very...