Remember Arjun Sengupta Committee Report? It’s the same report which put paid to government’s shifting poverty estimates by asserting that almost 80% Indian survive on less than Rs 20 per day. Known as the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), the report has gone missing from the public domain. The official website of NCEUS is no more working: http://nceus.gov.in, raising doubts regarding someone, somewhere trying to hide...

-IANS Protecting the interest of the common man, the Supreme Court Wednesday told the government not to disturb the existing retail price mechanism of drugs under the price control order while finalising the list of essential medicines. The judges observed that the prices of the drugs were so high that it left the patient with the option of either to die or buy medicines by selling one's land or ornaments. "The common man...

-The Hindustan Times The transformation from street corner protester to elected representative is never an easy one. In the case of some politicians, they never quite get over their penchant for tub-thumping, as we can see to some extent in Mamata Banerjee. Reading Arvind Kejriwal’s vision document and listening to his utterances, it would be no exaggeration to say that the transformation is going to be very difficult for him. Wearing...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court’s unyielding criticism of the government for not eradicating the practice of manual scavenging was the springboard for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to introduce the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012 in the Lok Sabha on September 3. Welcomed as a panacea for the historically iniquitous, caste-ordained practice of manually handling human waste, the new Bill indicates renewed commitment...

-Economic and Political Weekly The recent Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and, more broadly, on nuclear safety regulation has highlighted many serious organisational and operational flaws. The report follows on a series of earlier CAG reports that documented cost and time overruns and poor performance at a number of nuclear facilities in the country. On the whole, the CAG reports offer a powerful indictment of...