-The Telegraph The Supreme Court today dared the Centre to enact a law to prohibit retired judges or Bureaucrats from taking up post-retirement positions in commissions or other government undertakings. A bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar threw down the gauntlet when additional solicitor-general A.S. Chandiok suggested “there should be no post-retirement employment”. The law officer also asked the court to review its September 12 judgment that only sitting or retired...

-The Hindu The trials and tribulations of Ashok Khemka and Sanjiv Chaturvedi expose Haryana’s intolerance of upright Bureaucrats When Haryana’s top land registration official, Ashok Khemka, decided to probe Robert Vadra’s land deals in the State, he perhaps never anticipated the kind of animosity that his actions against Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law would generate within the government. Or, maybe he did, but went ahead nevertheless, hoping that a proactive media would...

-The Indian Express A report submitted in the Supreme Court on Friday indicted the Maharashtra government and Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan over a “close nexus between politicians, contractors and Bureaucrats,” facilitating extensive wrongdoings in supply of supplementary nutrition to children through the Central government-sponsored Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). The report, prepared by the principal adviser to SC-appointed Commissioner Biraj Patnaik, also highlighted that in Uttar Pradesh, supply of supplementary nutrition has...

On November 23, the Supreme Court is slated to hear a damning report submitted by the court-appointed Commissioners on how politically connected contractors—legally barred from the ICDS program—might be subverting the social welfare measure in the state of Maharashtra.  The ICDS is an Rs 8000 crore government-funded program aimed at ending India’s abysmal rates of child malnutrition by supplying hot cooked meals and take home rations to children through decentralised women-run,...

-The Times of India Private companies have hijacked the government's flagship scheme to provide food to poor children and their mothers, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), with contractors in Maharashtra alone controlling Rs 1,000 crore worth of supplies in contravention of Supreme Court orders, a report of the SC commissioners office has said. The SC orders bar contractors from supplying rations under the scheme. It only permits village communities, self-help groups...