-The Indian Express It doesn’t have sufficient power and independence, and seems unworkable. The absence of an adequately independent and empowered body to investigate and prosecute allegations of corruption, especially relating to the rich and the powerful, has been a longstanding concern in India. The Central Vigilance Commission’s (CVC) relative independence has proved ineffective as it has few resources at its disposal while the CBI, which is relatively empowered, lacks independence —...

-The Indian Express The Haryana state government had turned down a suggestion to drop the educational criteria In a first, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a new law in Haryana, mandating minimum educational qualification as a pre-requisite for the candidates contesting panchayat polls. A bench led by Justice J Chelameswar dismissed a batch of petitions that had challenged the validity of the amendment in the pertinent law. The court ruled that the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government said it will bring a comprehensive law to criminalize marital rape by amending the IPC and was awaiting the Law Commission report on the issue. "The issue of marital rape is very complicated and it is very difficult to explain and describe it. These are of such extreme private nature and no records of any consent are available. The matter has been dealt in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the 'intolerance' debate, lesser people have died in communal incidents this year as compared to 2014. While 86 people were killed until October this year, communal violence claimed 90 lives in the corresponding period of 2014. However, the total number of communal incidents till October witnessed a rise this year with 630 incidents being recorded as compared to 561 incidents in 2014. In 2013, when...

-Livemint.com What’s essential for the unique identification number to continue is a strong law. But what should it look like? A key thrust of the 2012 writ petition filed in the Aadhaar case (Puttaswamy versus Union of India) was that the executive action in implementing Aadhaar was unconstitutional in the absence of a law. Later developments in the case, including the government’s argument that there is no fundamental right to privacy, and...