In 2010, subject to government approvals, Indian farmers will seed their fields with transgenic brinjals—brinjals with a genetic variant that, courtesy Monsanty-Mahyco Ltd and a clutch of agricultural universities, protect them from insects. But 14 years ago, Polumetla Ananda Kumar successfully planted the first Indian transgenic brinjals in a field in west Delhi. Then he promptly burnt the entire crop to the ground. Kumar, head of the National Plant Biotechnology Centre at...
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Judicial Activism and Investigative Journalism: Editors as PIL Litigants by Prabhakar Kulkarni
A PubLIC Interest Litigation (PIL) can be filed in any High Court or directly in the Supreme Court. It is not necessary that the petitioner has suffered some injury of his own or has had personal grievance to litigate. The PIL is a right given to the socially conscious member or a pubLIC spirited NGO to espouse a pubLIC cause by seeking judicial means for redressal of pubLIC injury. Such...
More »Bonus Excesses and Outrage by Jaimini Bhagwati
Government and regulators need to focus on the systemic risk engendered by excessive compensation. As calendar year 2009 draws to a close, it is bonus season for the financial sector in the West. In the last several months, the need to cap bonuses and compensation packages has been extensively discussed in the context of limiting the future impact of the next financial sector breakdown. On December 9, 2009, the UK was...
More »If driving LICence not issued in a day, babu to pay fine by Rumu Banerjee
The sarkari babu will finally be made accountable. In a move that’s bound to bring cheer to people, Delhi government is set to penalize officials found guilty of sitting on files. It has fixed a timeframe for the processes involved in a service — like issuing of ration cards, driving LICence or election I-cards — and will make officials pay if there is any slackness and the schedule is not...
More »Guaranteeing service delivery
A full decade ago, Chandrababu Naidu made a point about the quick issuance of driving LICences, and easy digital access to land records and house tax calculations — which he showcased to Bill Clinton when the then US president came visiting. Since then, all of Karnataka has digitised its land records through the Bhoomi project that now has a database on 20 million land holdings. Other states have similar projects....
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