-CNN-IBN New Delhi: Just two days after the removal of Ashwani Kumar as Law Minister over the coal Scam, there seems to be more trouble for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A Right to Information application shows that it was the Prime Minister's Office that put pressure on the Environment Ministry to ease environmental rules to allow expansion in coal mining projects. In a recent landmark judgement, the Supreme Court has upheld the...

-The Hindu Kolkata: In a setback to the Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court on Friday directed that panchayat polls in 17 districts be held in three phases with the government fully compensating the shortfall in security forces to the satisfaction of the State Election Commission. Justice Biswanath Somadder rejected the government's arguments on all the contentious issues in its writ petition and directed that it inform the Commission of...

-The Times of India While disapproving law minister Ashwani Kumar's interference with the coal Scam investigations, the Supreme Court invoked a 1997 judgment to drive home the message that even the Prime Minister, who has administrative jurisdiction over the CBI, did not have the power to do so. This was one of the highlights of the written order released on Thursday of the three-hour hearing the previous day in which the government...

-The Hindu   Top civil society bodies are challenging the government's ‘counter-affidavit' in the Paid News case which seeks to gut the Election Commission's powers In a major twist to the Ashok Chavan vs. Madhav Kinhalkar legal battle (more notorious as the "Paid News" scandal), leading civil society organisations and eminent individuals have approached the Supreme Court to implead themselves into the case. Their intervention application, moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan, minces no words...

-Firstpost.com It is becoming increasingly difficult to retain respect for Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. He seems to surface in the media every time the UPA government is about to legislate its pet follies, providing intellectual succour to mindless spending and corruption wrapped up in the package of anti-poverty schemes. Yesterday, Sen bobbed up just when the UPA - under siege for every known Scam in India - tried to start discussions on...