Prior sanction for prosecution of public servants like bureaucrats and MPs in a criminal case will not be required if the strong consensus within the parliamentary committee examining the Lokpal bill is reflected in the panel's recommendations.  At present, presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament are required to give their assent for prosecution of MPs while the government is the relevant authority for civil servants. But the proposed Lokpal's...

Putting aside their earlier differences, the teams of social activists Anna Hazare and Aruna Roy have broadly agreed to come together on the anti-graft lokpal bill ahead of Parliament’s winter session, which begins next week. The development followed a series of meetings between Hazare-led India Against Corruption and Roy’s National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) to narrow down their differences on the bill. Both sides confirmed the development. “We had...

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...

The finance ministry is putting shape to a new social security scheme for unorganized sector workers, creating for the first time a safety net for millions of underpaid and overworked people, many of whom living in abject poverty.  The ministry has discussed with the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and the four state run non-life insurance companies the contours of this scheme that will provide life insurance, health cover and retirement pension...

The parliamentary panel examining the Lokpal bill is learnt to have formulated a five-stage mechanism that separates investigation from prosecution, and maintains “equilibrium in the holy trinity” of CBI, CVC and the proposed Lokpal. On the question of whether to include the prime minister in the Lokpal’s purview, opinion in the standing committee, sources said, has narrowed to two points of view: keeping the PM out and, including the PM with...