-The Times of India   A letter from the office of India's Central Information Commission to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently raises serious concerns over two proposals to amend the Right to Information Act through the Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) Bill 2011, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha last September. The first amendment seeks to exempt sensitive information on nuclear radiation safety issues and commercially sensitive information on technology holders from...

South Korean steel maker Posco may have to start its bid to enter India from scratch, letting six years of preparatory work go to waste. A top tribunal has cancelled environmental approvals given by the government last year for the company’s $12 billion (around Rs61,440 crore today) steel plant in Orissa and ordered that the environment ministry review the entire project afresh. The tribunal said environmental clearances have been accorded in...

By the sheer loudness of their protests, NGOs, journalists and intellectuals have bamboozled the Prime Minister into withdrawing the latest Planning Commission report. The report had shown accelerated poverty reduction, a perfectly plausible outcome in view of accelerated growth since 2003-04. But the critics are not happy that India is succeeding in combating destitution. They therefore tirelessly invent myths to muddy the discourse. If we are to avoid costly policy...

-The Telegraph The wage rate under rural job scheme NREGA could soon be brought on a par with the minimum wages for agricultural labourers fixed by states. The Centre is likely to amend the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) by incorporating a provision saying the wage cannot be less than the minimum rate for agricultural labourers in a particular state. At present, there are discrepancies between the two. A Karnataka...

-The Times of India   Terming exemptions to the RTI Act introduced through the proposed Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) bill as "regressive", information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi and legal luminary Fali Nariman have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reconsider the amendments in the interest of transparency. Nariman said the amendments were "unnecessary" and against the letter and spirit of the Act. "I am distressed to hear that the government of India proposes...