The law ministry has prepared a 10-point governance reforms agenda which envisages capping a bureaucrat's term to 20 years and seeks reforms in allocation of mining and land rights. The presentation made to key UPA functionaries, including Prime Minister manmohan singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi , says all new recruitments to central government jobs should be for 20 years and any extension beyond that would depend on the outcome of...

Admitting that there was "growing feeling" amongst people that present systems were ineffective in dealing with corruption, Prime Minister manmohan singh on Thursday said he hoped to bring the more stringent anti-graft Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill in the monsoon session of parliament. Addressing bureaucrats of the country at a function here, manmohan singh stressed that his government was accelerating its efforts to create a systemic response to curb graft practices in India. "Our...

Unfazed by controversies surrounding the Bhushans, civil society activists on Thursday rejected demands for their resignation from the joint drafting committee on Lokpal Bill but one of its members Justice Santosh Hegde said he is thinking of resigning from it. The demand for the resignation of lawyer Shanti Bhushan and his son Prashant grew on Thursday following a CFSL report that a CD allegedly involving the senior Bhushan was not tampered...

India’s apex planning body may cap national poverty at 32% for the purpose of calculating welfare benefits in the 12th Five-year Plan that starts on 1 April 2012, it said a day before a meeting with Prime Minister manmohan singh. The development comes on a day the Supreme Court asked Montek Singh Ahluwalia to respond why it should not strike down an earlier cap of 36% poverty after the government sought...

State will observe April 25 as Anti-Endosulfan Day Mass pledge in all districts on Monday 81 countries have banned Endosulfan The Cabinet on Wednesday decided to send an all-party delegation to the Centre to press for India's support to the proposal for global ban on Endosulfan at the conference of parties of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy will head the delegation which will meet Prime Minister manmohan singh...