-The Hindustan Times   The government on Monday said activist Anna Hazare’s demand for the rights to reject and recall elected representatives would be discussed soon at an all-party meeting on electoral reforms. Law minister Salman Khurshid said though chief election commissioner SY Quraishi had said these rights would destabilise the country, the government “will be happy to put it up for all-party consultations.” But he said, “We have a very strong lobby that...

-One World South Asia The recent report on paid news by Press Council of India recommends that representation of the People Act, 1951, should be amended to make the practice of paid news a punishable electoral malpractice. The Report defines paid news as Any news or analysis appearing in any media (Print & Electronic) for a price in cash or kind as consideration. The Report records that “Sections of the media in India...

-PTI Amid a demand by Team Anna for radical poll reforms, Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi says he is not in favour of ‘Right to Recall' or ‘Right to Reject' elected representatives, warning that any such electoral rule will “destabilise” the country. Opposing any move to have a ‘Right to Recall' as in many developed countries, Mr. Quraishi said it may not work in India given the size of the country. “It's not...

-NDTV Profit   Some of India’s biggest and most-respected entrepreneurs have released an open letter to the government. The group which includes Wipro’s Azim Premji, Anu Aga of Thermax and HDFC's Deepak Parekh, refers to the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill that is meant to be introduced soon in Parliament. The industrialists write, “The Lokpal Bill is only one small but critical step in the national task of weeding out the plague of corruption...

With the National Integration Council discussing the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill drafted by the National Advisory Council (NAC), the consensus against the legislation has been consolidated. Till then, the charge had been led primarily by the archetypal minority bashers, the constituents of the Sangh Parivar, who refused to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth about communal and targeted violence — that it is minorities and Dalits who bear the...