-The Hindu   The Union government has directed the Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands to take action for the exploitation of Jarawa tribal women, who were made to dance semi-nude before tourists. Tribal Affairs Minister Krishna Chandra Deo told journalists that the Centre had directed the Lt. Governor to bring the culprits to book and enquire the circumstances in which the tribal women were subjugated to such abominable repression and prevent...

-The Deccan Herald   The Central Information Commission has held that the Right to Information (RTI) Act cannot be used to get details of orders or judgments from the Supreme Court or the High Courts.  Significantly, the transparency panel clarified that since the Supreme Court as well as High Courts prescribed their own set of rules for providing judicial records, the information seekers could not use the RTI Act for that purpose. “We have...

PRASHANT BHUSHAN, a member of Team Anna and a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court, has been a vociferous critic of the government's Lokpal Bill at every stage. He answers, in an interview to Frontline, questions raised by Members of Parliament during the recent debate on the Lokpal Bill in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and enunciates the challenges ahead of the movement for an effective Lokpal. Excerpts: The government's...

The use of tracker technology to zero in on the misuse of diagnostic techniques for sex determination has evoked mixed reactions. ONE of the least discussed issues in the context of the data thrown up by Census 2011 is the worrisome decline in the child sex ratio (CSR) and the not-too-perfect implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, or PCPNDT Act. There is reason to...

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance finds the UID project to be “conceptualised with no clarity” and “directionless”. THE Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has dealt a body blow to the Unique Identification (UID) project. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was set up under the Planning Commission by an executive order on January 28, 2009. The scheme involves the collection of demographic and biometric information to issue ID numbers to...