-PTI The government today told the Supreme Court that “auction cannot be the only permissible method for disposal of natural resources” and a uniform policy on their distribution was “neither practical nor can it subserve the common good”. The Centre also said the allocation of natural resources was a policy matter and beyond the purview of judicial review. The submissions came in response to questions by the apex court on the Presidential Reference...

-The Economic Times Imagine a rural family of five. Mom. Dad. Two kids. And Grandma. Assume too that they are below the poverty line. The day is coming when this family will have to give its biometrics out to myriad agencies.  You know that Nandan Nilekani's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or the Registrar General's National Population Register (NPR) has been collecting biometrics for a while now.  But a set of other...

IRONY RUNS its play every year in India as food grains rot in godowns while 23 crore people go hungry every day. GOI Monitor talks to food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma on the issues stalking agriculture and public distribution    One of the reasons for surplus food not reaching the needy is that states are not picking up the grain. Why is this happening? Food grain procurement and distribution is...

The State finds a handy tool in a colonial law to quell dissent Wrong Arm Of The Law   Why ‘sedition’ rings hollow in India 2012 The law Section 124(A) of the Indian Penal Code, 1870; non-bailable offence The definition Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government...

-Tehelka Justice Sujata Manohar on how the Biotechnology Bill is fundamentally flawed IN THE last few years, regulatory systems across the board have been undergoing an overhaul to fit the needs of a new era. Likewise, new laws are being chalked out to meet new needs, and several are receiving flak owing to the loopholes and regressive grounds on which these have been drafted. The relatively more recent one to regulate modern...