They operate from a cramped floor in a commercial building near Bhikaji Cama Place in Delhi, and work on a heavy roster of hearings day in and day out. However, the five posts of information commissioners in the Central Information Commission have drawn applications from all categories of people — from scientists, lawyers and journalists to, most of all, retired or soon-to-be retired bureaucrats.   Despite the heavy workload and its low-profile...

-PTI The Centre has issued a new set of guidelines to seize properties or money of corrupt government officials even after their retirement.  The norms, made in consultation with the ministry of law and justice, says a competent authority in the department concerned can give sanction to the Centre for such attachment. The guidelines assume significance as most departments and investigating agencies like the CBI have in the past expressed difficulty in...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

-The Telegraph Non-performing babus can lose their jobs after 15 years — instead of 30 now — following a change in rules by the Centre. All officers of the All India Services, which include the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Revenue Service among others, will be covered by the rules notified last week by the Department of Personnel and Training after consultation with the states. Under...

-Express News Service   Concerned over the increasing instances of senior civil and police officers resigning at the last minute to contest polls, the Election Commission of India has asked the government to bring in a “cooling off period” clause for government officers who contest elections. According to sources, many senior officials were found to misuse their positions to nurture their prospective constituencies before finally quitting their jobs to contest elections. In a letter...