-The Economic Times   There seems to be no end to Posco's hurdles in the land acquisition and construction drive for its proposed 12-million-tonne steel plant near Paradip, even as the South Korean steel major has agreed not to insist on an important import clause in its lapsed agreement with the Orissa government. Even supporters of Posco in the project-affected villages have turned hostile and are now totally opposed to felling of...

Anna Hazare and his followers have a skewed notion of corruption. Would they ever see the Bhopal gas tragedy as the symptom of the problem? The government’s initial contempt and arrogance for Anna Hazare’s protest turned into craven pandering as his hordes made a carnival of it in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. One was troubled by the fate of other protesters who have received short shrift—the small, the struggling and much suffering...

-The Hindu   Enact laws to carry out reforms in elections, land: Karat The Left parties on Friday demanded a strong and effective Lokpal but emphasised that creation of an ombudsman to tackle corruption would need to be reinforced by laws and reforms in other areas. Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat, at a joint rally here, described the UPA government as the “most corrupt” regime in independent India, with a...

-The Economic Times   Prominent activist and key Anna associate Arvind Kejriwal claimed the income-tax notice asking him to pay dues of 9 lakh to the government is prompted by "political bosses" and without merit. The notice was slapped on him in August, days before Anna started the second round of his indefinite anti-graft hunger strike. The I-T notice and related developments threatened to deteriorate into yet another nasty row between Team Anna and...

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered private hospitals functioning on public land to make good their promise to treat the poor for free. This decision is intended to change the belief that “health care is given only to those who can afford it”. The bench of Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik passed a short order after a detailed hearing in which lawyers representing several private hospitals tried to...