-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Undeterred by the tumult surrounding the food security bill and the fear of opposition parties stalling it in Parliament, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is ready to launch the Flagship Food Security Programme at a mega public function in Talkatora Stadium on Tuesday. The Delhi government views this is an opportunity to kick off its poll campaign centred on the aam admi. The launch, which coincides with...

-The Hindu Political parties have acted as judge, jury, supplicant and advocate in their move to amend the RTI Act and remove themselves from its purview. Their rhetoric on transparency sounds more hollow now than ever. The RTI Act provides a regime of consummate transparency of "public authorities". Instead of specifying information to be disclosed, the Act mandates 100 per cent transparency subject only to a tightly defined list of exclusions under...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: An expert committee under chief economic advisor Raghuram Rajan has identified 10 parameters for a new Composite Development Index, whose adoption by the Centre will change the way thousands of crores are transferred annually and can potentially set the stage for realignment of political forces in Bihar before the 2014 polls. The new index seeks to rate states on the basis of their distance from the...

-Outlook RTI activists here today accused political parties of acting against the spirit of the Constitution by not appointing public information officers as per the order of the Central Information Commission. One of the activists, Nikil Dey, said they will take the issue among masses and would also keep a strict watch on election expenditures of parties in the coming assembly elections in the state. "If the CIC order was not legally sound,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Taking on the rampant money and muscle power in politics, a new political party, Nav Bharat Democratic Party, was launched on Thursday, promising clean candidates and transparent democracy. The party helmed by a motley group of professions, including a retired naval officer, entrepreneurs, lawyers and others, promised to provide an accountable government. The party will field candidates, including working professionals, entrepreneurs and veteran politicians, weaned away...