The Judiciary is the third branch of government. As with the Executive and Legislature, the public has a right to see and know and understand the functioning of this branch. That is why India, like every other democracy, has embraced the concept of open court proceedings and trials, except in those situations where, for security or other compelling reasons, in camera hearings are required. In the Mirajkar case ( Naresh Shridhar...

Consumption-based measures don’t accurately estimate poverty Since the publication of poverty estimates purportedly based on the Tendulkar methodology and the 2009-10 consumption survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), many in Parliament and outside, from different political parties, have questioned its conclusions. Concomitantly, media reactions have speculated on poverty’s relationship with fertility, growth, specific schemes, et al. But, India’s poverty, like itself, refuses to classify itself in simple boxes. Beyond the...

While it has made progress on water supply, a high percentage continue to defecate in the open   Going by the present pace of progress, India will achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs) on sanitation only by 2054. While some States had already achieved the target and some are close to it, other populous States such as Madhya Pradesh and Orissa will reach the target only in the next century, according to...

The government on Tuesday contested the WHO figures that put the number of Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases in India at 63,000, saying there were only 10,267. As many as 38,287 suspected cases were examined till the end of 2011 and of them, 10,267 have been diagnosed with MDR-TB and 6,994 put on treatment, according to TB India-2012 — the annual status report of the Revised National TB Control Programme...

-Moneylife Activists have urged the CM to fill up the posts immediately as RTI applications to various state government departments remain unanswered RTI activists and citizens are perturbed that maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has been dilly-dallying with the appointments to the vacant posts in the state information commission, and have said that he needs to be proactive in the implementation of Right to Information (RTI) Act and address the problems that...