-The Times of India How much you can splurge on the buffet, trousseau and finery at a family wedding may depend on how much you earn. A high-powered government panel has recommended income-linked cap on marriage expenditure, including gifts and food served.  The recommendation by the Planning Commission's Working Group on Women's Agency and Empowerment is part of the effort to tighten the provisions of Dowry Prohibition Act, 28 years after its...

Even as you read this, city transport authority officials are gearing up to renew driving licences in a day's time, discoms are now service bound to process your power connection application in not more than five weeks and you are entitled to get a birth/death certificate within seven days. With the Delhi (Right of Citizen to Time Bound Delivery of Services) Act, 2011 becoming a law on Thursday, Delhiites are now...

  Can we agree in this country on a floor of human dignity below which we will not allow any human being to fall? No child, woman or man in this land will sleep hungry. No person shall be forced to sleep under the open sky. No parent shall send their child out to work instead of to school. And no one shall die because they cannot afford the cost of...

-The Hindu   Delhi Health Minister A. K. Walia has said that the State Government would be enforcing the new Food Safety and Standard Act-2006 within the next three months, thereby ensuring heavy fine and punishment of up to life imprisonment for adulteration. Also, all food establishments would now be required to procure a licence and all shopkeepers will have to get themselves registered. Speaking in the wake of the recent intensification...

Itself the outcome of a bottom-up movement, the Jan Lokpal bill ironically proposes a centralised framework against graft. Without checks and balances. There was never any doubt that India needs a strong Lokpal Act. The protest has paved the way for its enactment. With the exultation over the anti-corruption campaign’s ‘victory’ quieting down, it’s time to take stock. Nuanced arguments—and indeed substance—have to recover lost ground to take the discourse...