Around the time Anna Hazare ended his fast at Ramlila Maidan and declared "electoral reforms" as his next agenda, 15 different organizations under the aegis of "Forum For Good Governance" kicked off a daylong deliberation on the same issue. Eminent members of the judiciary, political class, civil society and bureaucracy participated in the national conference on the 'urgency of electoral and political party reforms'. The success of Anna Hazare's anti-graft movement...

-The Times of India   The flood situation remained grim in most of north India with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar being the worst affected. More than a hundred people have died since the start of the monsoon and thousands of people rendered homeless. Standing crop has been damaged in several districts and livestock of many villages has got swept away. Most rivers in east and southeast of Uttar Pradesh are flowing above the...

-The Telegraph   A myth is being sold to the people of West Bengal by those who claim that the state will “move ahead of several” others if it is renamed, data available in the public domain and collated by The Telegraph have established. The statistics show that meetings that decide resource allocation by the Centre are not decided on the basis of an inflexible alphabetical order. Each state’s preparedness to make presentations...

It will be a mistake to assume that the food security bill, in its present form, will necessarily and sharply reduce India’s embarrassingly high rates of child malnutrition. Satiating hunger and providing nutrients that are essential for healthy growth and fitness are not quite the same thing, a fact highlighted by the leading medical journal Lancet in a recent research paper. The article says the prevalence of anaemia in India...

-PTI   Farmers affected by the Yamuna Expressway project have threatened to resume their agitation if the Uttar Pradesh Government fails to respond to their demands by September 5. In a memorandum sent to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, which has been leading the agitation for more than two years now, has demanded that there should be a parity in compensation rates for all districts through which the expressway...