During the last 10 days two land acquisition notifications have been set aside. The Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) has quashed a Haryana government’s 2002 notification for inappropriately releasing land to private developers. Similarly, the Allahabad High Court has repealed a UP government’s notification under which land was acquired for a private project in 2005. Both notifications have been cancelled on account of procedural lapses. However, these rulings highlight...

In a rare outburst, a sitting High Court Judge has alleged that “a vocal and aggressive Executive Government is attempting to regulate and take over Judiciary, even by corrupting the Judiciary.” This is part of the Republic Day greetings on his blog posted by Karnataka H C Judge D V Shylendra Kumar. He has been in the news ever since he took on the Chief Justice of India on the...

Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Monday said challenges still remained in the electoral system. The real empowerment and participative governance at the third tier of the government was still a work in progress. He expressed the hope that the electoral process at the local self-government level would benefit from coordination and sharing of experiences and resources with the EC. He was addressing the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Election Commission of India. Similarly,...

At least two cases of hunger deaths have been reported from Jabalpur district of MP and Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan in the past few weeks. The two states are run by different Political Parties-- the BJP and the Congress-- but there is quite a lot common in the victims’ circumstances. Both families were among the poorest in their villages but were not included in the BPL list and both the...

Why do poor people in rural areas vote when they know the whole system is against them? JEAN DRÈZE talks to some voters and observes the voting process during the recent Assembly elections in Latehar district, Jharkhand, and comes away with some pointers...  At one booth (Rankikalan, Booth No. 69) a BJP activist was trying to influence voters before they entered the booth, under the guise of helping them. Latehar...