The drama in the Rajya Sabha showed that the UPA government was not willing to go even by the will of Parliament. This gives rise to fundamental questions about the functioning of Indian democracy. The year 2011 will be remembered in India as the year of the campaign against corruption and for the Jan Lokpal Bill. The campaign began in January 2011 in the backdrop of the publicity that accompanied the...

As the nursery admissions rush gains momentum in the city, Delhi Directorate of Education (DoE) has defended its position on allowing 3+ as the age for entry in unaided schools. According to its affidavit in the Delhi High Court, the Right To Education (RTE) Act enables the DoE to allow children above the age of 3 years to be prepared for the elementary education. In response to a PIL that has that...

-CNN-IBN CNN-IBN has exposed an employment guarantee scam in Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi's constituency Rae Bareli where fake job cards are being used to siphon off money. An RTI application has thrown up some uncomfortable facts in this constituency where in the last 2 years, Rs 280 Crores were spent in Rae Bareli's MNREGS projects, but God knows where exactly is the money going! The national rural employment guarantee scheme is credited with...

-The Hindu   For no crime other than that he stood alongside a crowd demanding the restoration of electricity supply to his village, Altaf Ahmad Sood was shot dead on Monday. This appalling murder, at the hands of a Central Industrial Security Force picket guarding a power installation at Barnait, a village near Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, makes clear the casualness with which central forces reach for their guns against the...

-The Indian Express   The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh comes down on cow slaughter with an exceptionally stringent law. The Gau-Vansh Vadh Pratishedh (Sanshodhan) Act, which has received the presidential assent, makes cow slaughter a serious offence liable for punishment up to seven years. Even transport of cows to slaughter or storing of beef could invite punishment of varying degrees. Prohibition on the killing of cows and consumption of beef has been...