-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 Hindu A recent proposal to curtail the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India runs contrary to national and international conventions. Rather, it is the duty of both the executive and the legislature to strengthen this constitutional office A conference of the chairpersons of Public Accounts Committees (PACs) has just been held under the aegis of the Parliament’s PAC. Nishikant Dubey, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), member PAC, and...

-BBC National Highway 44 is a road with a deadly reputation. Hyderabad: It connects India's north and south and has been blamed for the deaths of an alarming number of south Indian tribal villagers who live alongside it. One such village is Peddakunta, belonging to the Mahbubnagar district of Telangana, and lying adjacent to the highway bypass. Tiny Peddakunta is easy to locate because of its reputation as the "village of highway widows". In the...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: VIP districts getting 24X7 power supply in Uttar Pradesh are also among places with maximum power theft. And two districts on top of this dubious list are Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Varanasi and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's Azamgarh constituencies. In fact, both have seen a huge jump in line losses. In Varanasi, the line loss has gone up from 43.18% to 50.13% while in Azamagarh, it...

-The Hindu Our work involves a lot of travel, including for various committees in Delhi’ India paid Rs.176 crore to its 543 Lok Sabha members in salaries and expenses over the last year, or just over Rs. 2.7 lakh a month per Member of Parliament (MP), new official data show. MPs are entitled to Rs.50,000 per month as salary, Rs.45,000 as constituency allowance, Rs.15,000 as office expenses and Rs.30,000 for secretarial assistance. When...