-The Indian Express Why we need to revisit the 74th Amendment The National Panchayati Raj Day to mark the enactment of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment was observed on April 24 with due ceremony but little hype. Whatever the reasons for the celebration, even those are not available for the 74th Amendment dealing with municipalities. The Government of India's first line of defence on this issue is that these are state subjects. Nevertheless, the...

-The Indian Express A Delhi court on Tuesday acquitted Congress leader Sajjan Kumar of all charges in a case related to the killing of five men in a Delhi Cantonment colony during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Five others named as accused with Sajjan Kumar were convicted - three of murder and rioting, and two of rioting. The acquittal of Kumar led to protests from...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Saradha group's collapse has possibly bankrupted lakhs of small investors robbing them of their life svaings, and has rendered thousands of its agents jobless. The scam highlights the failure of the government and its regulatory agencies to reign in the mushrooming chit fund companies in West Bengal. It also brings under the scanner the Trinamool Congress' proximity with the tainted group. In the wake of the...

-The United Nations The Asia-Pacific region, which has overtaken the Rest of the world in consumption of raw materials as affluence and manufacturing increase, must boost its resource efficiency or risk losing ground in lifestyle, economic growth and environmental sustainability, according to a UN report released today. From 1970-2008, consumption of construction minerals increased 13.4 times, metal ores and industrial minerals consumption 8.6, fossil fuels 5.4, and biomass 2.7 times, according to...

-The Indian Express In a big embarrassment to the government in the Coalgate case, the Supreme Court today termed as 'very disturbing' the CBI affidavit on sharing its report with the Law Minister and others and slammed the agency for having kept the court in the dark on the issue. Hearing the coal blocks allocation scam case in a packed courtroom, the bench said 'suppression' of the fact that CBI has...