-Hindustan Times Patna: Guns and goons have played a key role in Bihar’s politics for decades. As the eastern state heads to the polls next month, outlaws with itchy trigger fingers as well as ‘baahubalis’, or strongmen, are back in the frame. Dozens of erstwhile gangsters have found their way into mainstream politics either directly or through spouses and relatives. Some of them will not contest the polls, but their influence can...

-The Indian Express When the RTI Act was enacted, it was never visualised that politicial parties would be brought within the ambit of the transparency law, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said in an affidavit in the apex court. The government has opposed in Supreme Court a plea to bring political parties under the ambit of RTI Act, saying this would adversely impact their internal working and political functioning. Submitting...

-The Hindu There is no organised conspiracy against NGOs. It is in the nature of power to exercise greater control, and exempt itself from accountability. The recent changes in the rules governing foreign funding of NGOs under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) have been widely discussed. The last word on it will perhaps never be written. The UPA government initiated this and we see some concrete changes now. Sifting through the...

-The Indian Express It can be strengthened —by the collection of taxes at the local level, for instance. Democratic decentralisation, conceived two decades ago, seems to be a lost cause at first sight. Beyond lip service by politicians, neither panchayats nor municipalities have captured the public imagination as viable, responsive, accountable institutions of government. Just after the Karnataka panchayat elections, which ended on June 2, the continued disempowerment of local governments is...

-The Hindu For two years, national political parties have defied the RTI Act that they themselves passed. They have not sought legal remedy either by appealing against the CIC order declaring them to be Public Authorities. If lawmakers defy the law in this fashion, it sets a bad precedent. Political parties should be more accountable if they break the law, not less Six national parties in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),...