-The Hindu Instead of the present opaque system, a high-level, broad-based Committee should be formed to choose the country’s “most important” constitutional functionary In May this year, the present Comptroller and Auditor-General will retire on completing 65 years of age. Given the Government of India’s exasperation with him, it seems very probable that for the next CAG, it will look for someone who is likely to be bland and ignorable, and quite...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...

-The Telegraph The world lauds us as the largest democracy. Yet, how much of a democracy are we and where must we improve? Elections and their consequences: We have regular elections. They are supervised with increasing effectiveness as far as booth capturing, bogus voters and violence are concerned. The influence of money has not waned; if anything, it has increased. It is not as it used to be, for paying voters only....

-The Hindu Caste might be cast in stone judging from the way the dominant discourse gets conducted in India “Caste is the most overwhelming factor in Indian life. Those who deny it in principle also accept it in practice. Life moves within the frontiers of caste and cultured men speak in soft tones against the system of caste, while its rejection in action just does not occur to them...” Socialist thinker Ram...

-The Hindu Thanks to manufactured debates on TV, there is no time for irony and nuance nor are we able to distinguish between a charlatan and an academician Now that the Supreme Court has provided some sort of relief against harassment to Professor Ashis Nandy, it has become incumbent upon all liberal voices to ponder over the processes and arguments that combined to ensure that an eminent scholar had to slink out...