-The Telegraph   The government has listed the Lokpal bill for discussion and passage during the winter session of Parliament but has failed to line up the land acquisition bill though an unscheduled introduction is not ruled out. Both bills had gone to House standing committees around the same time after the monsoon session of Parliament, and both hold electoral significance for the Congress. Failure to get the Lokpal bill passed in the November...

The parliamentary panel examining the Lokpal bill is learnt to have formulated a five-stage mechanism that separates investigation from prosecution, and maintains “equilibrium in the holy trinity” of CBI, CVC and the proposed Lokpal. On the question of whether to include the prime minister in the Lokpal’s purview, opinion in the standing committee, sources said, has narrowed to two points of view: keeping the PM out and, including the PM with...

“It will be an apolitical, secular movement with a pro-poor slant” A new group of crusaders against corruption is likely to emerge after a meeting at the Gandhi Peace Foundation in Delhi this Friday. Some of the former members of the India Against Corruption movement's core group, including Waterman Rajendra Singh, land rights activist P.V. Rajagopal, Medha Patkar and Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey are likely to attend the meeting which...

In this Idea Exchange moderated by Senior Editor Archna Shukla, I&B minister Ambika Soni speaks about self-regulation by the media, empowering the Press Council of India and the Congress party’s stand on corruption Archna Shukla: There is a growing perception that the government is unhappy with media criticism. The editor of a leading English daily publicly claimed that government advertisements have been stopped to his publication. Is the government being vindictive? I have...

-PTI "Education gave me a new life.... It is a magic wand that can help us meet any challenge." This was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's message to students as Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal rang the school bell in this nondescript town in rustic Mewat region, marking the launch of the year-long 'Shiksha Ka Haq Abhiyan' campaign to create awareness about the Right To Education (RTE). The Prime Minister's message was read out...