Even as the CPI(M) brass show a brave face and publicly maintain they will form the next government in West Bengal, the party’s internal feedback from the districts shows the Left Front will go out of power after a record stint of 34 years. The feedback has come from districts where polling is already over. The final phase is on Tuesday, in just 14 constituencies. The counting of votes, with those...

The 1985 Lokpal Bill destroyed the raison d'etre of the institution of an ombudsman, but all successive governments copied it. PUBLIC anger was understandably aroused over the gross delay by Parliament in the last 40 years to enact a Lokpal Bill and with the toothless one that the government sponsored. It is not widely known that the delay was aggravated by deception and fraud in 1985. It was, however, emulated by...

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar is yet to take a decision on the contentious report of the Public Accounts Committee on the 2G spectrum allocation scandal presented to her by PAC Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi on April 30. In a press release on Wednesday, the Speaker said she had reconstituted the PAC on May 1. Mr. Joshi is to continue as Chairman for the year starting May 1, 2011 as it...

HRD minister Kapil Sibal has termed the draft PAC report on 2G spectrum allocation as "not a report" because it has not been adopted by the parliamentary committee, but said it is for Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to decide on the matter. "The PAC chairman (Murli Manohar Joshi) himself said he had adjourned the meeting. So obviously for a report to be adopted, it has to be adopted either unanimously...

He contests the validity of some members rejecting it The Public Accounts Committee's voluminous report on 2G spectrum allocation that has become a political hot potato landed on the desk of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Saturday afternoon; soon after this, PAC Chairman M.M. Joshi said he expected her to table it in Parliament. “It [the report] has been received by the Speaker. I did not meet her, nor did...