The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has found that the Naveen Patnaik government has ‘misused' the Land Acquisition Act for acquiring land for several big industrial projects, including the proposed mega steel plant by South Korean steel major Posco. “Emergency Provisions of Section 17 (4) were misused and applied arbitrarily even without indicating detailed justification for the same and without fulfilment of prescribed conditions,” the CAG has stated. The CAG report...

-The Times of India The education department on Thursday slapped a show-cause notice to Sofia Senior Secondary Girls' School for violating norms under the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The show-cause notice was served after the department investigated complaints of a parent who said many girls studying below Class VIII were not promoted to the next class. The department found the complaints to be true but the school said saying parents of...

Twenty years after a case of staged shootout, a CBI court in Ghaziabad on Thursday held 17 policemen guilty and sentenced 16 of them to life imprisonment, making it perhaps the largest number of cops convicted for life at one go in the country. They were convicted of killing an alleged Sikh militant, Jaivender Singh Jasna of Amritsar, in a fake encounter in 1992. One of them was given a seven-year...

The Judiciary is the third branch of government. As with the Executive and Legislature, the public has a right to see and know and understand the functioning of this branch. That is why India, like every other democracy, has embraced the concept of open court proceedings and trials, except in those situations where, for security or other compelling reasons, in camera hearings are required. In the Mirajkar case ( Naresh Shridhar...

The Bengal government is set to grant a never-before concession to developers of township projects, under which government companies will be allowed to hold and lease out land in excess of ceiling without prior permission. However, no activity other than real estate development is being allowed such flexibility despite industry complaining about difficulties involving land. “It seems the (amendment) proposal is highly lopsided. Does the government think only township development would be...