-The Hindu   Following is the note placed by the CPI(M) at the all-party meeting held by the Government on the issue of the Lokpal today. August 24, 2011 Stand of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Lokpal: For An Effective Anti-Corruption Body Introduction Corruption has become a major public concern in the wake of successive scams unfolding over the past few years. In a country like India, where millions of people still suffer from acute poverty,...

The Anna Hazare agitation is showing signs of becoming a political and social monster. There are several disturbing elements already in evidence, perhaps more disturbing than the awfulness of corruption. Whatever one thinks of the anti-corruption bill drafted by the government, the agitation, by the day, is growing scarier. There is a combustible mix here of hero worship, cult propagation, populist absolutism and irrational exuberance, mass hysteria, de-politicization, militarization, and,...

Karnataka: The report of the Task Force on encroachment of government land is likely to suffer a silent death. IT was clear to V. Balasubramanian, the Chairman of the Task Force for Recovery of Public Land and its Protection, when he submitted his report on encroachment of government land that it would ruffle quite a few feathers in the political and bureaucratic echelons of Karnataka. What he was unprepared for...

Its facets include concentration of media ownership and the transformation of news into a commodity. THE last two decades have witnessed a dramatic transformation of India's ‘mediascape' – a term first used by Arjun Appadurai, an academic of Indian origin based in the United States, to describe how visual imagery impacts the world and to describe and situate the role of the mass media in global cultural flows. While there...

The bidirectional relationship between economic development and health justifies greater investment in the health sector. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has been described as one of the largest and most ambitious programmes to revive health care in the world and has many achievements to its credit. It seeks to provide universal access to health care, which is affordable, equitable, and of good quality. It has increased health finance, improved infrastructure...