-The Business Standard   Higher judiciary has not addressed the delays in India's courts Continuing what will be a year of quick personnel changes for the higher judiciary, a new chief justice of India, R M Lodha, has taken office. Justice Lodha will have only a five-month tenure. It will be difficult for him to introduce any far-reaching reform in this period. His initial speech after being sworn in must have been written...

-The Hindu   If some communities have been denied the benefits of development on grounds of religion, this development is anti-secular, argues Rajeev Bhargava, political theorist Arch rivals the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party continue to trade accusations against each other of playing the communal card in the campaign to the general elections. These are classic instances of the confusion over what secularism is in India. Restoring clarity on the conceptual aspects...

-Outlook Mumbai: In a significant order, the Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra Government not to impose the burden of managing mid-day meal scheme for students on teachers, calling it "non-educational work". Putting such non-teaching responsibility on teachers would amount to violation of section 27 of the Education Act, a division bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka ruled on Thursday. Section 27 provides that "no teacher shall be deployed for any non-educational...

-Outlook Over two crore cases are pending in subordinate courts in the country which also face a shortage of over 3,000 judicial personnel, a Parliamentary Committee has observed. It termed the high rate of pending cases in subordinate courts in the country a "serious matter". "The Department of Justice (in the Law Ministry) informed that as on March 31 (last year) 2,68,51,766 cases were pending in subordinate courts. "Some of the major reasons for...

-The Business Standard Observes that giving Aadhaar to non-citizens shouldn't be a problem The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government to clarify the structure of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to ascertain the legal validity of the agreements UIDAI had entered into with states. The court, while hearing a joint review petition by government agencies on its order on linking UID, or Aadhaar, numbers with government services, also...