The Supreme Court-appointed committee investigating illegal iron ore mining in Karnataka is tying up loose ends in Bellary district and will be submitting its final report early next month. The court's forest bench is to hear the case again on February 3.  The Central Empowered Committee (CEC), whose investigations prompted the Supreme Court to suspend mining in iron ore-rich areas of the state, affecting nearly a fourth of the country's production,...

Activists fear that the government’s move to exempt the CBI from the Right to Information Act could have ulterior motives Kiran Bedi is convinced that the UPA government’s reluctance to give the proposed citizen’s ombudsman, the Lokpal, control of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the country’s premier investigation agency, is due to skeletons that lie buried deep in the agency’s cupboards.   The day Parliament was to discuss the Lokpal Bill,...

-The Times of India   The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday doubled the cash reward of Rs five lakh to Rs 10 lakh for information on the murder of RTI activist Shehla Masood, who was shot dead outside her house in Bhopal on August 16, 2011. Though the agency had registered a case against unnamed persons on September 3, 2011, it increased the reward money since the motive behind the murder...

It would be an understatement to say that India Against Corruption leader Arvind Kejriwal, a key member of Team Anna, is a dejected man. After stirring the nation last year with his anti-corruption for the most part of 2011, Kisan Baburao 'Anna' Hazare saw the movement fizzle out when he staged a fast in Mumbai in December. He has since returned to his village to recuperate from an undisclosed illness even...

PRASHANT BHUSHAN, a member of Team Anna and a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court, has been a vociferous critic of the government's Lokpal Bill at every stage. He answers, in an interview to Frontline, questions raised by Members of Parliament during the recent debate on the Lokpal Bill in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and enunciates the challenges ahead of the movement for an effective Lokpal. Excerpts: The government's...