-The Times of India   Terming exemptions to the RTI Act introduced through the proposed Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) bill as "regressive", information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi and legal luminary Fali Nariman have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reconsider the amendments in the interest of transparency. Nariman said the amendments were "unnecessary" and against the letter and spirit of the Act. "I am distressed to hear that the government of India proposes...

Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai on Tuesday trashed the suggestion that the federal auditor's estimate of undue gains to companies caused by the government's failure to auction coal blocks was "fallacious" or "erroneous". "We are incapable of making fundamental errors as being discussed in media. Our report will make clear all doubts on fallacies (that are) being talked about," Rai said at a seminar on 'Public Accountability and the Role...

-The Indian Express A seven-year-old girl drowned in East Delhi on Tuesday after she fell into an underground water tank whose manhole cover had been left open. The tank in Patparganj is used by the Delhi Fire Service (DFS). Sheeba was on her way to a park when she fell into the tank, her mother said. Immediately after the incident, a blame game began with Government Agencies pointing fingers at each other. The DFS said...

The arrest of Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi in connection with the bomb attack on an Israeli embassy car raises many questions. AN uneasy silence fills the streets of B.K. Dutt Colony near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Named after the revolutionary freedom fighter Batukeshwar Dutt, who, along with Bhagat Singh, threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929, the nondescript colony has been...

-The Hindu Japan has given United Nations children's fund UNICEF a grant of 120 million Yen, the equivalent to Rs. 7.2 crore, for buying vaccines, supplies, equipment and services in 2012 to ensure India remains free of polio virus. Japan's Ambassador to India Akitaka Saiki and UNICEF India Representative Karin Hulshof signed the Exchange of Note at a ceremony in the Japanese Embassy here. Shinichi Yamanaka, Chief Representative, Japan International Cooperation Agency,...