CHANDRAWAL, India—Satbir Sharma's wife is dead. His family lives in fear. His father's left leg is shattered, leaving him on crutches for life.   Sharma's only hope lies in a new law that gives him the right to know what is happening in the investigation of his wife's death. Most of all, he wants to know what will happen to the village mayor, now in jail on murder charges. He talks quietly, under...

-The Hindu   “If the law of the market is ignored, then no government policy, however well intended, is going to work”, Chief Economic Advisor to Government of India Kaushik Basu said at a conference on the Indian health sector here on Friday. He referred specifically to how 44 per cent of the food grain meant for the poor never reaches them through the Public Distribution System and said that this needs...

The relentless campaign to discredit the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) and diminish the institution is continuing. One is not surprised; this has happened before, for instance in the Bofors case. However, one is dismayed because the campaign, unwittingly aided by some elements in the media, seems to be succeeding to some extent. It seems urgently necessary to dispel certain doubts and misperceptions before they gain ground and...

-The Indian Express   Narendra Modi government has justified before the Supreme Court its ongoing probe against social activist Teesta Setalvad in a case of alleged illegal exhuming of bodies of 2002 Gujarat riot victims, saying that she actually planned and executed digging of graves without permission in 2006. In an affidavit, the Gujarat government claimed that during the investigations involving the accused, including her one time close aide Rai Khan Pathan, and...

The claim that the Unique Identification project will facilitate the delivery of basic health services is dishonest. AMONG the many reasons cited for India to proceed with the Unique Identification (UID) project – that it will facilitate delivery of basic services, that it will plug leakages in public expenditure, that it will speed up achievement of targets in social sector schemes, and so on – the most specious is perhaps the...