Days after two forensic laboratories gave conflicting reports on the genuineness of a contentious CD, Lokpal drafting committee member Shanti Bhushan asked home minister P Chidambaram for copies of the reports. He said that despite writing to the Delhi Police commissioner and ACP (special cell), he had received no information on these two reports. The CD purportedly contains a conversation between Shanti Bhushan and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav with...

Soon, RTI won’t get info out of the CBI Mirror Turns Opaque     * CBI proposes an exemption from giving information under RTI     * Law ministry gives it green signal based on Gopal Subramanium’s opinion     * All it requires is a department of personnel and training (DoPT) notification to get an exemption     * Activists fear agencies will use this to deny citizens information *** Will the CBI be allowed not to divulge details...

Lawyer and civil society member on the Lokpal Bill joint drafting panel Prashant Bhushan on Thursday denied that he had spoken at all to the former Samajwadi Party member, Amar Singh, or to anyone else from his office or home. “Not at all,'' he said when asked by The Hindu if he had spoken to Mr. Singh on Thursday and tried to “gag'' him as claimed by the latter at a...

The arrest of Suresh Kalmadi on 25 April marked yet another scene in the prolonged drama surrounding the Commonwealth Games held in Delhi in October 2010. Yet the general media focus on Kalmadi may have served to distract attention from the many other acts of omission and commission that mark the sordid history of that extravagantly planned and deeply flawed public show. In these other actions, there are stories of funds...

Joint drafting panel on Lokpal Bill holds second meeting; public consultations after agreement on basic principles In the second round of discussions in the joint drafting committee on the Lokpal Bill here on Monday, members of civil society invoked the United Nations Convention on corruption to stress that the underlying principle of the anti-corruption law should be to have an independent body that covers the highest executive and the judiciary. The...