-The Economic Times As the Right to Education completed two years, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said that it was now the responsibility of state governments to deliver on the promise of universal elementary education.  "Whatever provisions that have been made in RTE these have to be implemented. Plans for it are completely ready so that they can be implemented after two years. I believe that this is a great accomplishment...

The United Nations has asked India to repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, saying it had no role to play in a democracy. “The AFSPA in effect allows the state to override Rights in the disturbed areas in a much [more] intrusive way than would be the case under a state of emergency, since the right to life is in effect suspended, and this is done without the safeguards applicable...

-The Times of India It was UPA 1's winning mantra. But the Rs 33,000 crore a year rural job guarantee scheme may be floundering with the government admitting the flagship programme suffers from delayed payments, poor awareness, lack of durable assets, faulty job cards and muster rolls. The finance ministry has echoed some of the major criticisms of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act listing endemic "lack of awareness about...

The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has found that the Naveen Patnaik government has ‘misused' the Land Acquisition Act for acquiring land for several big industrial projects, including the proposed mega steel plant by South Korean steel major Posco. “Emergency Provisions of Section 17 (4) were misused and applied arbitrarily even without indicating detailed justification for the same and without fulfilment of prescribed conditions,” the CAG has stated. The CAG report was...

The Editors Guild of India on Thursday opposed in the Supreme Court the idea of temporary restraint on reporting of court proceedings saying enforcing these guidelines would lead to “infringement” of the right to free speech. Senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan told a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia that any move to empower courts even to temporarily clamp down on reporting to protect the interests of the parties...