-The Economic Times   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to re-consider the idea of creating a new category under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, for the rural employment scheme. He has said that the revisit can be done even as the special leave petition (SLP) process moves forward. The Centre has already decided to file a SLP in the Supreme Court against the Karnataka HC's s...

-The Pioneer   The Central Information Commission has ordered that intelligence agencies like National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) cannot withhold information under the RTI Act on corruption-related matters and related in-house investigation details. The landmark decision is a serious blow to intelligence and security agencies, which often reject applications under RTI on corruption- related issues. In this case, CIC has directed NTRO to provide information on the in-house probe details on irregularities and corrupt...

The Supreme Court has rejected a five-decade-old perception built on the basis of several reports of Commissions of Inquiry that during communal violence the police were generally biased against minority community and arrested the victims instead of the assailants. "No one can perhaps dispute that in certain cases such aberrations may have taken place. But, we do not think that such instances are enough to denounce or condemn the entire force,...

The United Progressive Alliance government's decision to challenge the Karnataka High Court's ruling on payment of minimum wages to workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act came under attack from the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), the body that governs the programme. And Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has warned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the “atmospherics associated with filing of a special leave petition [in...

A day after the introduction of the anti-graft Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill, 2011, in the Lok Sabha, sources in the Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday felt that the agency's autonomy of investigation had been “seriously compromised”. CBI sources said the Bill did not seem to confer greater autonomy to the investigative agency—one of the focal points of the civil society's agitation for bringing about a strong, effective and credible Lokpal...