-The Times of India NEW DELHI: There was one aspect of the Lokpal bill Rahul Gandhi felt strongly about but finally decided to let go for now: Stronger accountability checks for members of the anti-corruption ombudsman. Having prodded his party to belatedly adopt the Lokpal bill, the Congress vice-president felt recent controversies involving the judiciary did raise questions about stricter standards that require closer attention. But tinkering with the Lokpal bill, already screened...

-The Indian Express The UPA government's ambitious Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act was notified on Tuesday, and will come into effect from January 1 next year. The rules to the Act, however, are yet to finalised. The Act, which replaces the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, has sought to correct the low rates of compensation under the old Act by providing compensation of up to...

-IIT Delhi A survey of five entitlement programmes of the government was undertaken in twenty districts of ten states (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh) in May and June, 2013. The programmes covered by the survey were: Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme, Public Distribution System (PDS), National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and Social Security Pensions. The...

-The Indian Express Food inflation owes largely to agricultural markets being regulated by outdated laws. The RBI governor, Raghuram Rajan, has a difficult task this week. He has to decide whether to keep interest rates constant or raise them - bearing in mind the possible taper of the US Fed's bond buying programme, a decline in industrial production and a rise in inflation. The sharp increase in consumer price-based inflation, to more...

-Outlook Batting for bringing flexibility in UPA's flagship NREGA, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh today said the scheme has failed to achieve the three objectives of wage employment, creating community assets and empowering gram panchayats at the same time in any state. Stating that all jobs cannot be provided in areas where the youths want them, he called for encouraging migration across all states and noted with concern the "discrimination" in housing suffered...