-The Telegraph The Supreme Court today said a public servant facing corruption charges need not be heard before the competent authority decides on sanctioning prosecution. “…the person for whose prosecution the sanction is sought is not required to be heard before a decision in the matter. What is required to be seen is whether the facts placed before it, which, in a given case, may include the material collected by the complainant...

-The Business Standard   But there's work still to be done The government’s decision to geographically split India between two contending registry projects — the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the National Population Register (NPR) — is intended to save on the wastage that would result from duplicate data collection. Now they will use each other’s data, though duplication cannot be entirely avoided – as P Chidambaram, the Union home minister,...

-The Economic Times   It is welcome that the political leadership has sorted out the turf battle between the Unique Identity Authority and the National Population Register and allowed the Unique Identity Authority to proceed with capturing biometric data and issuance of unique numbers for 40 crore more residents.  The authority has already completed the work for 20 crore people. That leaves half the population to be covered. The NPR personnel and the...

-DNA   Baba Ramdev was not there. Nor was it the Ramlila Maidan of Delhi. But lathis were used - on the dalits of Sanand, who had experienced a similar fate when they were lathi-charged post midnight earlier this week, and the corpse which was placed in the police station to agitate against the ineffective cops, was seized. The body was of Atul Rathod, a resident of Rethal village of Sanand Taluka. The...

Further work likely to be done by an agency to be designated by Centre The curtains will come down on enrolments for Aadhaar, the Central government's ambitious unique identification programme, by February 15 at all 2,245 enrolment centres across Karnataka. A letter sent to Deputy Commissioners, in 23 districts where Aadhaar is being rolled out, by the State department of e-governance, informs them of the decision to stop enrolments, adding that “further...