What kept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh busy after securing minister A Raja’s resignation on the night of November 14 last year?   He was writing a reply to National Advisory Council chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s letter on the practice of manual scavenging. On November 15, he wrote to her that he was asking the Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment to “examine how to strengthen” implementation of the Employment of Manual Scavengers and...

-The Economic Times   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for a review of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, one of the UPA's trophy Legislations, potentially exposing the government to a fresh stand-off with civil society. Addressing a two-day annual convention of the Central Information Commission here, Singh said the transparency law should not adversely affect deliberative processes in the government and discourage honest, well-meaning public servants from voicing their views. He...

Have the National Law Schools, the counterparts of IITs and IIMs in the legal field, faltered in inculcating social responsibility in the bright young lawyers passing out from the prestigious institutions? Justice M K Sharma, a Supreme Court judge, feels so and has expressed strongly against the trend of "bright young law students" flocking to become corporate lawyers rather than opting for training in litigation. "Unfortunately, the statistics available indicate that 85%...

Managing our soil and water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner needs a new political vision, which can be expressed through the proposed Land Acquisition Bill and the recently formed Global Soil Partnership. On the basis of a proposal I had made three years ago, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a Global Soil Partnership for Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation at a multi-stakeholder conference, held...

-The Economic Times   At a time when the social media is said to have spawned revolutions across the world, including our very own Anna Hazare movement, the government looks set to use the medium as a governance tool. The department of information technology has framed guidelines for social media interaction with government organizations to optimize use of the popular communication tool to connect with citizens. The guidelines - stressing on issues like professionalism,...