-PTI   Anna Hazare’s team today found itself at the wrong end of the graft-and-transparency stick with a former group associate, Swami Agnivesh, raising questions about possible funds diversion by Arvind Kejriwal. Team Anna member Manish Sisodia claimed Agnivesh was acting “out of anger” at being removed from the team after a video clip purportedly showed him asking a person to deal strongly with Hazare. According to Agnivesh, around Rs 80 lakh that supporters...

FAO to give suggestions on the pesticide to committee on persistent organic pollutants An ad hoc working group has been established to review and identify the information gaps on alternatives to endosulfan and to assess these alternatives. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will be roped in to undertake studies on integrated pest management alternatives to endosulfan. This was decided by the seventh Persistent Organic Pollutant Review Committee (POPRC) of the Stockholm...

-The Indian Express   On at least 12 occasions, Kiran Bedi appears to have inflated her travel expenses while charging the institutions and NGOs inviting her for seminars, even as she used her own travel discount as a gallantry award winner — keeping the rest of the money for her own purposes. Bedi defends herself, saying that she was travelling less comfortably than she was entitled to, and using the money left...

They could vote freely in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections but had to plead and fight for their right to exercise their FRAnchise in local body polls. The Dalits (Pallars) of Gramapatti village in Kovilankulam panchayat under Chellampatti panchayat union near here finally got to vote in the panchayat elections for the first time in four decades. According to a section of the Dalits, the local elite's dominance, in the form of...

At a time that land in urban centres, especially in the big metropolitan cities, is at a premium, a Working Group of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has suggested that, as far as possible, slum dwellers should be resettled at the spot where they are currently living, rather than displacing them, so that they continue to remain close to their places of work. NAC sources said the Working...