-Livemint.com * The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha last week. It will now require President’s nod to become a law * The Bill was passed by a majority vote of 108-13, while also escaping scrutiny of a Select Committee NEW DELHI: In what may overhaul the country’s transportation system, the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the proposed amendments to the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019. The bill was passed by the Lok...

-The Telegraph 'The existing system of the HRD minister chairing the panel for selecting IIT directors was a bad practice' New Delhi: A panel of educationists set up by the University Grants Commission has found flaws with the existing system of selecting academic heads of institutes of higher learning and called for a review, implying that politicians should not be part of the process. The recommendations came in a report the four-member committee,...

-The Times of India blog Last week, NDA government succeeded in getting contentious amendments to RTI Act passed by Parliament. Social activist Aruna Roy, who was at the forefront of the movement to persuade Parliament to enact the original law, speaks to Anindo Dey about the development: * The government said the RTI Act amendments set right the anomaly of the Information Commissions, which are statutory bodies, being treated on a par...

-The Telegraph The government worked the phones to bring around three unattached parties that had reservations about the amendments New Delhi: A depleted Opposition fought valiantly in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday to try and have the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill 2019 referred to a Select Committee but lost as the government worked the phones to bring around three unattached parties that had reservations about the amendments. The government defeated the motion...

-TheWire.in "I think the fact that the whole [NSSO] exercise began with a fundamental premise of keeping it comparable, that has been forgotten." The fierce debate over India’s unemployment figures came to a head last week, when a jobs data report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) was finally made public. This report has been a source of contention ever since two members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC)  resigned allegedly...