The grievance redress system in the country is “poor” and public service providers “lack accountability”. This is indicated by the fact that 95 per cent of the households that were asked to pay a bribe ended up doing so. This is revealed by a new survey, ‘India Corruption Study: 2010', prepared by the Centre for Media Studies. The report, based on a survey of around 10,000 households across 12 major cities,...

The government may be facing an unprecedented barrage of corruption charges and an embarrassing Lokpal bill stir, but India Corruption Study, 2010, reveals that there is a marked decline in the percentage of people who feel graft has increased since 2005. Centre for Media Studies has conducted the survey. Rural population across 12 states — three of them Congress-ruled — was surveyed. The foreword has been written by NAC member Aruna...

Free speech advocates and Internet users are protesting new Indian regulations restricting Web content that, among other things, can be considered "disparaging," "harassing," "blasphemous" or "hateful." The new rules, quietly issued by the country's Department of Information Technology earlier this month and only now attracting attention, allow officials and private citizens to demand that Internet sites and service providers remove content they consider objectionable on the basis of a long list...

Loss to the exchequer due to the grant of 122 licences to new entrants in 2008 was Rs.1.24-lakh crore Government lost Rs.36,000-crore in grant of dual-technology licences The government must get exact loss calculated instead of washing its hands of it The draft report of the Public Accounts Committee on the 2G scam has come out with yet another figure for the loss to the exchequer, putting it at Rs.1.90-lakh crore in the...

United Nations body FAO has said the contagious Avian flu virus H5N1, which causes bird flu, still remains firmly entrenched in India and five other countries because of unhygienic trade practises. "...the virus remains firmly entrenched in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam," Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a statement. "Eliminating the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus from poultry in the six countries where it remains endemic will...