-IANS   Concerned over the poor 11 percent fund utilisation of the Rahul Gandhi-driven Bundelkhand package worth Rs.7,000 crore, the central government will review its performance Monday.   Following Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi's intervention, the central government had sanctioned Rs.7,000 crore package two years ago for development of the backward Bundelkhand region, spread across Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.   Even as politics hots up in the run up to the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections...

The Chhattisgarh High Court has directed that no further action be taken towards granting environmental clearance to a coal mine operated by DB Power Ltd, a subsidiary of DB Corp, one of India's largest media corporations. The respondents have been given three weeks to reply. A writ petition filed in the court accuses the company of adopting “deliberate, illegal and manipulative” measures to influence the outcome of a public hearing held...

The Kandhamal violence of 2008 “meets all the elements of crimes against humanity,” said the report of the Justice-A.P. Shah-headed National People's Tribunal on Kandhamal, which was released here on Saturday. The report recommends the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to re-examine the First Information Reports already registered, to file fresh FIRs where necessary and to recommend remedial measures where trials had been vitiated because of intimidation of witnesses...

-PTI Press Council of India Chairman Justice Markandey Katju has sought “more teeth” for the regulatory body and expansion of its ambit over the electronic media and the Internet for which, he suggested, a legislation should be introduced in Parliament. In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, now made public under the RTI Act, Justice Katju said the only power conferred on the Press Council under Section 14(1) of the Act...

-The Hindu   The Communist Party of India has criticised the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for proposing to impose curbs on freedom of expression claiming the proposed curbs, though indirect, on social networking sites were a blot on the country's image. The defence of Union Communications Minister Kapil Sibal did not hold ground in that there were several laws to punish people spreading communal and anti-national messages through any medium, CPI deputy...