-The Hindu Two years after vociferously arguing for an expansion of the provisions of the National Food Security Act, the BJP in government is bleeding it with a thousand cuts, both fiscal and otherwise When Parliament passed the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, it had already become one of the most debated pieces of legislation in decades. Those for and against it had fought it out across yards of space...

-The Hindu Without a head, functioning of Central Information Commission has come to a halt When the Bharatiya Janata Party won by a massive majority in the general election last year, one of the key election promises that brought it to power was transparency and accountability in governance. A year later, many of the electoral promises made on that front remain on paper — the Lokpal Bill and the Grievance Redressal Bill,...

-Livemint.com Parliamentary panel blames ministry for not utilizing budget in full, demands tightening of administrative steps New Delhi: A parliamentary committee has criticized the government for cutting funds for the environment ministry and asked it to revise the allocation since the ministry is tasked with arresting environment degradation. The committee also blamed the ministry for not utilizing its budget in full, and demanded that it tighten its administrative mechanisms. A report by the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government today gave in to the Opposition and referred the bill for regulating real estate to a select committee for scrutiny. Urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu brought a motion for sending the bill to the committee, to be headed by BJP MP Anil Madhav Dave. The 21-member panel will have to hand in its report at the start of the monsoon session. The Opposition had demanded examination...

-PTI Raising serious questions about the quality of Ph.D holders in the country, a parliamentary panel has sought an evaluation report to understand why suitable candidates were hard to find for vacant teaching posts. With over 7,000 research scholars being awarded Ph.D every year, the panel has suggested “reorienting” the entire system of evaluation of Ph.D and other research scholars. In its report tabled in Parliament last week, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on...