-PTI Funding of political parties in the country is “loosely governed” under the law and almost 80 per cent of their total funds escape “scrutiny” owing to lack of required laws in this regard, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi said here on Tuesday. Zaidi, while addressing a global conference on the influence of money power in the electoral process, said it was high time that electoral reforms, which entail enactment of...

-The Indian Express   India’s poor are closely bunched up near the poverty line. This could make poverty alleviation more manageable.    A recent World Bank (WB) report brought out poverty ratios across countries. According to these estimates, poverty in India in 2011-12 could be as low as 12.4 per cent if we use “modified mixed reference period” (MMRP), in which there are three recall periods depending on the nature of items. This...

-The Hindu Bench offers LIMited and unidimensional explanations to petitioners’ queries The Supreme Court judgment upholding the new Haryana panchayat law, which LIMits the voter’s freedom to choose his own candidate in a participatory democracy, offers LIMited and unidimensional explanations to questions and issues raised by parties in court. The judgment by a Bench led by Justice J. Chelameswar does not explain why it considers the reasons for disqualification in Section 175 of...

-The Hindu The Paris Agreement on cLIMate change marks a milestone in preserving the earth’s environment and provides a floor on which to build ambition and action. It is the outcome of a long struggle by millions of citizens around the world, aided by the weight of scientific evidence linking severe, more frequent weather events such as cyclones and droughts to man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The 195 country-parties to the UN...

-The Telegraph Nearly 200 countries this evening reached a cLIMate accord that some analysts have called a "turning point" in human history designed to drive the world towards 100 per cent clean energy. "It's a compromise... but it is a historic accord for the world," said Laurent Fabius, the president of the Paris conference of parties and the French foreign minister. "Our responsibility to history is immense." But others have warned that the...