Acute dissatisfaction verging on disgust with the behaviour and performance of some Members of Parliament and members of Legislative Assemblies has generated a debate about enacting a legislation for recall of elected members. Under the present law, an MP or an MLA has a fixed term of office for five years. Articles 102 and 191 of the Constitution specify the contingencies in which a person shall be disqualified for being...

-The Times of India   Four more doctors' registration has been suspended after a court farmed charges against them for their alleged involvement in sex determination. The Rajasthan Medical Council suspended the registration of the doctors after the court framed charges against them, health minister A A Khan said here on Monday. Soon after the provisional census 2011 revealed that the state's sex ratio is on the decline, the medical and health...

In covering Anna, TV seems to have shed its critical faculties “Corruption,” I remarked the other day on a television channel, “takes more than one form.” We were talking about—what else?—the latest incremental progression in the Anna Hazare saga. “Everyone talks of money corruption, but what about the other kind—‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’? And who has any kind of power now? Only two entities: Anna Hazare and television.” That’s...

The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh Director-General (Prisons) seeking his report, returnable in four weeks, on allegations of three prisoners in Bhadoi sub-jail being mercilessly beaten. The Commission acted suo motu taking cognisance of the incident based on media reports. The alleged incident took place on August 20. The media said the prisoners concerned, who tried to escape from the jail, was caught by the...

In the name of God, hapless girls are still being made to become devadasis which in stark terms means being raped by the priests, secretly auctioned to brothels and finally dying of AIDS. Deebashree Mohanty speaks to a few of these unfortunate women who died everyday of their life for a farce called service of the God I was nine when I got married to my village deity Yellamma. The mahajan,...