Justice Markandey Katju's prescription for a regulated media regime is a misplaced step that can actually de-democratise the fourth estate. IT is open season on the political class and the news media. But then, again, it's more like a chase of one's own tail. A self-righteous, delusional, Anna-Baba NGO-ised fringe sets out to stigmatise politics and Members of Parliament; the news media salivate at the prospect and rush to provide...

A Delhi court has ordered a first information report (FIR) and criminal investigations into allegations that the agriculture ministry had allegedly paid trumped-up bills worth nearly Rs. 14 lakh as legal fees to its standing counsel. The court said there was evidence to suggest a nexus between the counsel and ministry officials to cause loss to “public exchequer” through “fraud” and “misappropriation of funds”. The complaint, moved by the All India Federation...

Rudyard Kipling opens his superb novel with the street urchin Kim teasing the son of a wealthy man. Kim kicks Chota Lal, whose father, Lala Dinanath, is worth half-a-million sterling, off the trunnion of the mighty cannon Zam-Zammah. Kipling loved India and wrote that it was the only democratic place in the world. It warms us to read this, but of course this was quite untrue in Kipling’s time and...

-The Economic Times At the peak of Anna Hazare fever last year, anybody disagreeing with his message or prescription was branded pro-corruption. Over the last few weeks, anybody expressing disappointment at the Supreme Court upholding the Right to Education (RTE) Act is being branded anti-poor or elitist. This is unfair and unnecessary: dissent is not treason. The supporters of Anna and RTE have similar traits: impatient, intellectually certain and more interested in...

-The Telegraph   The New York Times has reported that Wal-Mart, the US-based retail giant, hushed up an internal investigation sometime after the company was told of a bribery campaign to obtain licences and facilitate rapid expansion in Mexico. Some of the alleged instances of bribery are certain to ring a bell in India where it is not too difficult to bend rules for a price. The New York Times said its “examination...