NINe moths after the thrashing it received in the Assembly elections, the CPM leadership has undertaken a purge within. It has dropped 13 of its veterans from the West Bengal state committee, three of them several-term MPs, from key posts on grounds of “anti-party activities” or age and health. Party insiders say the exercise was a reflection of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee asserting himself with the party’s state unit. Such a drive had,...

Dr Abhijit Sen is Member, PlanNINg Commission of India. He is a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge (currently on leave as Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University) and has also taught at the Universities of Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. Besides serving various think tanks in the states and at the centre, Dr Sen has been a consultant with UNDP, ILO, FAO and various other multilateral...

-The Indian Express   Expressing concern over delay by the Centre and state governments in deciding mercy pleas of prisoners on death row, the Supreme Court today sought from them the records of all such cases. A Bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhyay said the home secretaries of all the states would send the records of all cases of mercy pleas to states within three days to the Centre,...

-PTI President Pratibha Patil , seems to be the most merciful of all presidents during the last three decades. She has commuted death sentences of 23 petitioners to life imprisonment, which is over 90% of the total pardons granted since 1981. On February 9, she accepted the clemency petition of Sushil Murmu, pending since 2004, who was convicted for giving 'bali' (sacrifice) of a NINeyear-old-boy in Jharkhand for his own prosperity,...

-PTI Expressing concern over delay by the Centre and state governments in deciding mercy pleas of prisoners on death row, the Supreme Court today sought from them the records of all such cases. A bench of justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhyay said the home secretaries of all the states would send the records of all cases of mercy pleas to states within three days to the Centre, which would...