I have not read the Private Member's Bill on media regulation that Meenakshi Natarajan was scheduled to move in Parliament last week so I am not in a position to comment upon it, but I am certainly of the opinion that the media (both print and electronic) needs to be regulated. Since my ideas on this issue have generated some controversy they need to be clarified. I want regulation of the...

On March 25, 2000, the Army and the Jammu and Kashmir police claimed to have made a breakthrough, killing five men they described as Lashkar-e-Toiba militants in what they called an encounter in Pathribal. These militants, the Army said, had been involved in the massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chittisinghpora five days earlier when then US President Bill Clinton was on his way to India for an official visit. The Army...

The private member’s Bill that Rahul Gandhi’s close aide and Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan was scheduled to introduce in Parliament last week lays down a draconian set of rules clearly aimed to gag and threaten the media in the name of “protecting national interest”. Called the Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012, it provides for a media regulatory authority — part selected by the I&B minister and three...

-The Hindu If only laws could eliminate all that they prohibit, India would have been free of the scourge of manual scavenging decades ago. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, which is to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament, is another attempt to prevent employment of people in the cleaning, handling or carrying of human excreta. Despite the renewed stress on rehabilitation in the...

At least 75 complaints of corruption and misconduct against serving judges of the Supreme Court and high courts were forwarded in the last one year for “appropriate action” by the government to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and chief justices of concerned high courts.   The justice department of the law ministry, which forwards these complaints, has told HT that it “is unaware of any action taken on these complaints” by...