Centre favours CBI inquiry into alleged misappropriation of funds With the Congress-led Union government favouring a CBI enquiry, in its affidavit before the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court, into embezzlement in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme funds, trouble is apparently brewing for the BSP government under Chief Minister Mayawati, who is already bearing the brunt of the NHRM scam in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. The Centre filed the affidavit...

-Contributed by the India Country Office and the Legal Vice Presidency What does a parent from one of India’s historically marginalized castes do when his child is not allowed to sit with others in class? Or, if during the mid-day meal at school, his dishes are kept separate from others? Whom does a young mother turn to when a health worker refuses to enter her house? Where does she go when...

As many as 68 families who lost relatives in the AMRI Dhakuria fire met at the Nandan complex this morning to raise safety awareness but some were unable to mask the anger at police’s inability to arrest anyone on duty that night. “I still can’t forget how the security personnel kept insisting that the smoke could never enter the ICU, where my father was. He was a cardiac patient and his...

The government, the largest owner of landed property in the country, is preparing a comprehensive land sale policy to raise revenues and check corruption in government-owned property deals. The finance ministry will shortly move a cabinet note for bringing in a new uniform policy on 'land alienation' by government agencies, with an eye on removing discretionary powers of individual ministers and bureaucrats, said a government official. In big cities, large tracts...

The Jharkhand government, which is sitting on a PILe of MoUs worth over Rs 3 lakh crore, is planning to take legal action against rouge investors who have signed deals with the state and used allocated resources for profit without setting up their promised projects. Chief minister Arjun Munda has directed chief secretary S.K. Chaudhary to create a dossier on the status of all MoUs signed by the state government since...