July is a month when we need to remind ourselves how reforms have changed India since 1991, from vulnerability to resilience, whether to external shocks (say, oil) or internal ones (droughts). In 2009, we witnessed the worst drought since 1972, yet the agricultural growth rate stayed positive (0.4%), nor did we resort to any major cereal imports. And in 2010-11, we are likely to have a record harvest of 241 million...

Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption has a curious side-effect. It has turned the spotlight on India's lack of pre-legislative transparency. We may accept or dismiss team Anna's Jan Lokpal draft but his movement — and the subsequent build-up of hope and betrayal — has unwittingly exposed the systemic opaqueness in which our laws are conceived, written, debated and passed. The Lokpal Bill 2011 is one among 67-odd bills listed as...

The Central government exempts the CBI from the Right To Information Act's purview without seeking Parliament's approval. THE Right to Information Act, 2005, originally exempted 18 public authorities under the Central government from disclosure of information. Section 24 of the Act provided this exemption to intelligence and security organisations specified in the Second Schedule of the Act, and permitted the Central government to amend the Schedule, by notification in the...

By exposing its lesser arm, is the petromin hiding bigger sins? Petro Fallout     * Murli Deora, who as petroleum minister sought the CAG audit and sanctioned a CVC probe, offers to quit his ministerial post     * CBI action reinforces CAG draft report findings blaming DGH for oversight in implementation of production-sharing contracts     * Unease in market, as yet another CBI probe into charges of DGH having favoured RIL in its...

The CBI search at V K Sibal's residence on Friday is likely to bring into the open a number of controversies that have surrounded the office of the directorate general of hydrocarbons (DGH) and the ministry of petroleum and natural gas in the two tenures of the UPA government. The searches were a tipping point in allegations against Sibal, a former director general of hydrocarbons whose tenure started in 2004 under...