-The Times of India NEW DELHI: All government servants may get a 'shield' from prosecution as the Centre has okayed changes in the Prevention of Corruption Act to make it mandatory for investigating agencies like CBI to take its prior approval before initiating an investigation against them. Union minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh on Thursday said the purpose behind mandating prosecution sanction for government officers under the anti-graft law was...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the recent murder of RTI activist Bhupendra Vira's, the death toll of those using the transparency law to target corruption and malpractices has gone up to 56. In fact, there has been more than 311 instances of harassment of citizens including murder, attacks and intimidation from the time the law came into force in 2005, according to an analysis by Delhi-based advocacy group CHRI. Reports...

-The Hindu New Delhi: A group of central ministers led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will meet on Thursday to discuss the proposed labour code on wages and the Small Factories Bill, barely two weeks after trade unions led a nationwide strike to express opposition to proposed labour reforms. “The group of ministers will meet on Thursday to discuss the proposed code on wages,” Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said here on the...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Big Four ministers in the Narendra Modi government — finance minister Arun Jaitley, home minister Rajnath Singh, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and defence minister Manohar Parrikar — haven't spent a paisa on office improvement. But junior ministers and less-heavy weight ministers, including those affected by the recent Cabinet reshuffle, have been keener on doing up their workplace. ET's RTI questions on office decoration expenses revealed office improvements...

-Down to Earth The rural development ministry had recently demanded an additional allocation of Rs 5,000 crore to maintain the momentum of MGNREGA Civil society has supported the demand made by the Union Ministry of Rural Development to the Ministry of Finance to provide Rs 5,000 crore for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGS). Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the United Progressive Alliance’s employment generation flagship scheme,...