The Supreme Court today asked the central government to explain why lotteries shouldn’t be banned to save the poor from frittering away their meagre earnings in the hope of hitting the jackpot. The notice came a little over a week after another bench of the court asked Bengal to restrict draws of a lottery to once a week as mandated under a central law instead of one every five minutes. “Why should...

Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan’s recent request to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to protect the judiciary from increasingly ‘‘intrusive’’ queries appears to have triggered an exercise to look for options to effect changes in the RTI Act. Following the CJI’s impassioned letter, which said questions asked by chronic litigants about the judiciary could erode its independence, the government has started looking into possible changes in the RTI Act,...

Wajahat Habibullah’s new job as Jammu and Kashmir’s chief information commissioner has run into rough weather even before he has taken the oath of office. Jammu and Kashmir High Court has admitted a writ petition that challenges his appointment as the state’s first CIC. Wajahat recently quit as chief information commissioner (CIC) of India to take over the fresh assignment at chief minister Omar Abdullah’s request. State officials say Wajahat, an old...

People of dalit communities in the Gadarwara sub-division of district Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh are on the brink of starvation as they are facing harassment, economic sanctions and social boycott because they have refused to remove animal carcasses. A fact finding team of civil society organisations says that dalits at many places have been ‘imprisoned’ in their own houses as all entry and exit points have been blocked by the...

This small and readable book is a layperson’s introduction to India’s economic catastrophe. Since many people believe in an ongoing economic miracle, such views are often dismissed as doomsday talk. But it is better to be aware of reality than to live in an illusion. The title is apt—Bhaduri offers us an unsettling vision of what awaits us if we continue along the current path. He alerts us to the...