-Live Mint The Sonia Gandhi -led National Advisory Council (NAC) may be moving closer to formulating a pre-legislative process that will involve a thorough, time-bound discussion of Bills before they become law. “The need for such a policy of consultation is necessary to evolve from a representative democracy to a participatory, deliberative democracy, particularly for accountability to the people in the formulation of law and policy,” said the draft recommendation of NAC’s working...

-Live Mint CIC suspends hearings to seek govt’s opinion; RTI activists criticize the move, saying it could lead to delays The Supreme Court said on Thursday that information commissions at the central and state levels should have two-person benches, with one person being a “judicial member” and the other an “expert member”. That prompted the Central Information Commission (CIC) to suspend hearings to enable it to seek the government’s opinion and led to...

-Outlook The bill providing 50 per cent reservation for women in urban local bodies in Odisha was passed by the state assembly today. Opposition Congress and BJP raised a din and did not participate in the proceedings in the passage of the bill. The house had debated the Odisha Right to Public Service Bill, 2012 last night but there was no discussion on two other bills - The Odisha Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill,...

-The Indian Express A little over 11 years ago, when the Congress defeated the Asom Gana Parishad and Tarun Gogoi took over as chief minister of Assam, people had their doubts. Would this man who had spent most of his political career since 1971 as a Lok Sabha member be able to run this state? The state, with its unique tangle of ethnicity and politics, has, after all, always been a...

-The Times of India Chief Justice of India (CJI) SH Kapadia on Saturday said the Supreme Court might have overstretched the human rights jurisprudence to include right to sleep in the bouquet of fundamental rights, as enforcing such a right would be very difficult. The CJI, who was delivering a lecture, also seemed critical of the civil society activists for questioning the authority of Parliament to make laws and by draping themselves...