No one’s buying the government’s desperate arguments to keep the prime minister above Lokpal scrutiny Points Of Friction   Government and civil society representatives have sparred on the question of including the prime minister in the proposed Lokpal Bill on seven key grounds: Point: The Prime Minister is accountable only to Parliament, and to the people of India Counterpoint: Does this mean a PM can never face action for criminal liability, however serious the charge,...

Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said the government would soon announce an ex gratia payment for persons whose lands were acquired for the Jaitapur nuclear power plant. “The compensation has been declared under the Land Acquisition Act. We will give an ex-gratia payment. The government will be taking a decision on it,” Mr. Chavan said. Earlier, State Industries Minister Narayan Rane said the land rate was fixed at Rs.46,000. The government...

-PTI   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday directed upgradation of safety measures at the country's nuclear facilities to match the global standards as he reviewed the disaster preparedness in the wake of recent radiation scare in Japan. At a special meeting here, he asked the authorities concerned to look 'beyond design basis accident' while putting in place the safety measures at the nuclear installations. Singh took stock of the safety measures being...

Just ahead of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to India where she will hold delegation- level talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday, Berlin decided to shut all its nuclear power reactors by 2022. The decision is expected to have wide-ranging ramifications in India as those opposed to nuclear power, including the movement at Jaitapur, will claim vindication in what is being described as a drastic reversal of policy...

-The Hindu   Human rights activist Binayak Sen said here on Monday that there was no question of his being a Naxal sympathiser. “Neither am I a Naxal sympathiser nor [an] opposer of Naxals,” Dr. Sen told journalists at the Press Club. “I believe that violence, either of the state or the non-state actors, does not cure any problem,” he said. Launching a scathing attack on Salwa Judum, he said that it...