-The Telegraph In government report cards on babus, “adequate” will now mean “inadequate” and “satisfactory” signify “unsatisfactory”. No, India’s government isn’t turning into a doublespeak-driven Orwellian Big Brother; nor is it taking lessons in obfuscation from Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister fame. What it has done, for the first time, is to define “non-performance” on the part of senior bureaucrats, nudging states to prematurely retire those whose annual reports routinely judge their...

-The Telegraph Chhattisgarh police today admitted that the 18 victims of yesterday’s anti-Maoist operation included children and women but sparked fresh controversy by claiming they were all rebel cadres. The admission came after the bodies were laid out in front of a police station to facilitate identification — a routine procedure — and journalists took photographs. It was clear that several of the victims were children and at least one seemed a...

-The Telegraph The Jharkhand government is uneasy, a bit tense even, about tomorrow’s visit to Saranda by Union minister Jairam Ramesh who has time and again made public his displeasure at the slow implementation of his development initiative in the former Naxalite hub of West Singhbhum. In his latest missive, sent to Chief Minister Arjun Munda on June 18, the architect of the Saranda Development Plan highlighted a number of “worrying” issues,...

Yet another case of judicial corruption was exposed last month when the Andhra Pradesh High Court suspended additional special judge for CBI cases T. Pattabhi Rama Rao following allegations of corruption. Charged on the basis of a complaint filed by the CBI, the special judge had allegedly taken a bribe of Rs 5 crore to grant bail to former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhana Reddy in the illegal mining case. The...

-The Indian Express Delhi has become the first state to provide financial assistance to poor people who are undergoing anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS. All patients will be provided lifelong assistance of Rs 1,000 per month, while children who were either orphaned after their parents died of AIDS; or abandoned by parents suffering from HIV/AIDS, will be given a monthly assistance of Rs 2,050. Children infected by HIV/AIDS will be given a monthly...