Most central ministers have signed at the end of last year a performance-tracking document, the sweeping nature of which has started to sink in only now. Although the ministers say they have no quarrel with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s objective of improving governance, some resent that their performance will now be assessed by a set of bureaucrats. “We are now at the mercy of some babus in the cabinet secretariat who have...

India’s apex minority education watchdog has been reduced to an agency with a head but no body because of hectic lobbying over appointments after incumbent members either quit or completed their terms. The National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, started five years back, is functioning at a third of its strength mandated under the law, crippling its ability to decide on key policy matters. Under pressure from sections within the...

The jinxed women’s reservation bill received a boost today with a parliamentary panel advocating immediate passage in its present form. The panel rejected any dilution of the proposed 33 per cent quota for women with party-based reservation or double-member constituencies. The bill on women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies should be passed “and put in action without further delay”, the standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and...

The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed by voice vote the contentious Essential Commodities (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2009, (sugarcane pricing Bill) after the Central Government assured the House that State governments would not be required to pay the difference of the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) for sugarcane set by the Centre and the State Advised Price fixed by the States. On persistent requests by opposition members led by Venkiah...

MADURAI: Radio was an important source of information and knowledge formation among rural populace and played a vital role in empowering the masses, said M. K. Alagiri, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers. Delivering the inaugural address after formally launching the Gyan Vani Educational FM Radio Station (at 105.6) in Madurai Kamaraj University on Saturday, Mr. Alagiri said that at a time when commercialisation had become the central element among...