Only a handful of candidates from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category have managed to get a seat or an institute of their choice in the open category this year. A majority had to use reservation or relaxed score to get into the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). According to the IITs, of the 4,805 OBC candidates who cracked the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) this year, 1,625 candidates had figured in...

-PTI The role of the Urban Development Ministry, responsible for creating infrastructure for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, has come under the scanner of the PAC which has flagged some serious issues regarding delay in getting environmental clearance and extending "undue favour" to a private company in awarding contracts. While responding to Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) query on the "inordinate delay" in approaching the Environment Ministry for getting clearance, the Urban Development...

-The Times of India One of India's most unusual experiments with citizen participation in governance is set to come to an end on Friday, when central information commissioner (CIC)Shailesh Gandhi retires. Gandhi, a noted Right To Information (RTI) activist from Mumbai, was appointed to the central information commission in 2008. Under the RTI Act, there is a state information commission in every state for its laws, and a central information commission for...

By repeatedly decrying the CAG and trying to malign the person occupying that Constitutional office, the UPA government is weakening an important pillar of democracy and lowering its own credibility Admitting that there is a great deal of uncertainty and a perception of policy paralysis in the government these days, a senior Cabinet colleague of the prime minister recently observed that it was being created by the activities of (Comptroller and...

A compromise formula aimed at breaking the deadlock between teachers and HRD minister Kapil Sibal over admissions to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) could end up hurting hundreds of thousands of aspiring students. Under the new formula, only the top 20% students in their respective class 12 board exams would be eligible for appearing in the IIT entrance exam, top government and IIT sources told HT. The compromise was brokered by...