-The Hindustan Times The government seems to have tied itself in a knot over its proposed move to reduce the age of consent for sex from 18 to 16 years in the new criminal laws (amendment) bill that will replace the February 3 ordinance on rape laws. The draft bill incorporating the fresh changes is likely to come up for cabinet approval this week. Sources said the women and child development (WCD) ministry...

-The Hindustan Times Former employee of Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) Aizaz Ahmed Mirza, who had been arrested on terror charges and was released on bail on Tuesday, claimed he was innocent and had worked hard to get the job. Mirza, 26, had been arrested along with journalist Muthi Ur Rehman and two others in August 2012, on charges of plotting a terror attack. His brother Shoaib Mirza is the...

-The Hindustan Times The Comptroller and Auditor General has pulled up the department of financial services (DFS) for not properly monitoring the implementation of the Rs.52,000-crore debt waiver package. The DFS, under the finance ministry, depended completely on nodal agencies for monitoring the scheme that was announced by finance minister P Chidambaram in the 2008-09 budget, the report said. But, following the issue of the draft audit report, the ministry asked the RBI...

-The Hindustan Times The CAG has found several shortcomings in the implementation of the first UPA government’s Rs. 52,500-crore farm loan waiver scheme — while thousands of ineligible farmers got the benefit, many eligible applicants were left out. The CAG report, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, disclosed that it had audited 80,299 beneficiaries across 25 states, which was less than 1% of the total 34.5 million recipients. The scheme had two components —...

-The Hindustan Times Your right to information is taking a big leap, into cyberspace. The government will launch two web portals this month to enable citizens to file their information requests and receive responses over the web. The move will coincide with the department of posts launching an electronic version of postal orders, giving Indians abroad the option to pay for the information using postal orders. The e-postal order would initially...