-The Hindu Legislative Assembly panel gives clean chit for transfer of Rogda reservoir land to private power company While there is an outcry in Maharashtra over disappearing irrigation water, in Chhattisgarh, an entire reservoir — the lifeline of four villages — has vanished. The 131-acre rain-fed reservoir has been leased out by the government to a private power company. However, an Assembly committee, recently constituted to investigate the ‘transfer’ of the reservoir, in...

-The United Nations A top United Nations official today strongly encouraged governments to adopt special temporary measures, such as quotas, to boost the number of women in parliament and decision-making positions, pointing to the progress achieved by women in India as a result of affirmative action. “Here in India, quotas have spurred one of the world’s greatest successes in women’s empowerment and grassroots democracy,” Michelle Bachelet said in her keynote address to...

-Frontline Reinstatement of the fundamental right to property in the Constitution will on its own do little to protect the interests of poor peasants and traditional communities.  The Indian Constitution adopted in 1950 guaranteed a set of fundamental rights that cannot be abridged by Central or State laws. One of these fundamental rights was the right to property enshrined in Articles 19(1)(f) and 31. Article 19(1)(f) guaranteed to all citizens the right...

-The Hindu   It may lead to illegal grabbing of government land: communiqué    Governor H.R. Bhardwaj has returned the Karnataka Land Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2012 to the State government on the grounds that the “policy of regularisation of encroachment of government land directly encouraged illegal occupation of government land.” According to a communiqué from the Raj Bhavan, the amendment to the Bill sought to substitute the existing section 94C of the Karnataka Land...

-IANS A right to information (RTI) activist here Monday complained to the Comptroller Auditor General (CAG), accusing a senior official of the premier auditing and financial propriety of splurging government money. Aires Rodrigues, in his letter of complaint to CAG chief Vinod Rai, said that Additional Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General Shankar Narayan, who was in Goa for a legislative orientation programme in June, splurged government money on business class air travel...