The government’s recent actions in notifying the Intermediary Guidelines for the internet with minimal public debate have resulted in the creation of a legal system that raises as many problems as it solves. The regulations as presently notified are arguably unconstitutional, arbitrary and vague and could pose a serious problem to the business of various intermediaries in the country (not to mention hampering internet penetration in the country) and also...

-The Business Standard   But there's work still to be done The government’s decision to geographically split India between two contending registry projects — the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the National Population Register (NPR) — is intended to save on the wastage that would result from duplicate data collection. Now they will use each other’s data, though duplication cannot be entirely avoided – as P Chidambaram, the Union home minister,...

What was our immediate response to further decline in the child sex ratio in India? Within days of the provisional 2011 Census results (March-April 2011), the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reconstituted the Central Supervisory Board for the Pre-conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex selection) Act 1994 , which had not met for 3 years, and on November 30, 2011 the Ministry of Women and Child Development...

MPLADS funds will only be used for the material component of the projects Federal lawmakers can now use their discretionary funds to finance work taken up under the government’s flagship jobs scheme, a move aimed at creating more lasting community assets in the villages. The government has decided to converge the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But MPLADS funds...

Corruption has become a serious problem, defying solutions. To curb it, several measures are needed apart from the Lokpal bill, the Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill and the Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Persons Making the Disclosures Bill, otherwise known as the whistlblowers protection bill. The three bills, in their present form, do not appear capable of achieving the avowed objective. Like the Right to Information Act, these bills...