-PTI The Parliamentary Standing Committee going into the Lokpal bill has recommended keeping out judiciary and MPs' conduct in House out of its purview and rejected the demand for hiving off the prosecution wing of CBI to come under its jurisdiction. Members have unanimously recommended conferring constitutional status on the Lokpal and setting up of Lokpal and Lokayuktas in states under one legislation. The draft report on the Bill, which has been...

-PTI   Studies suggest that MGNREGA has triggered shortage of labour for agriculTural operations like sowing and harvesting in the key agri states and has also pushed up general wage level, Parliament was informed today.   These were the findings of state-level studies conducted by Agro Economic Research Centres under the Ministry of AgriculTure, Union AgriculTure Minister Sharad Pawar said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. The studies were conducted in Karnataka,...

The top rung Maoist leadership has every reason to be worried now as intelligence agencies in different Left Wing Extremism affected States have been striking gold in either arresting or killing the top leadership. The Maoist movement faced a series of setbacks in 2011 as the security forces managed to arrest four Central Committee members earlier and the fifth blow to the rebel movement was dealt in the killing of Kishenji,...

If the story earlier was that the number of Maoist-affected districts was increasing, that no longer seems to be true On the third anniversary of the attack on Mumbai, today, the success to celebrate on the internal security front may be far removed from Mumbai, and located in the jungles of the tribal heartland of eastern India. The killing on Thursday of Kishenji, ranked third in the hierarchy of the Maoists,...

The floodgates have opened on a movie ominously titled DAM999, which some political parties in Tamil Nadu feel is toeing the line of neighbouring Kerala in a dispute between the states. A section of Tamil Nadu politicians feels the movie, produced and directed by a Malayali businessman, relates to the controversy around the 116-year-old Mullaperiyar dam in central Kerala. Tamil Nadu holds the lease rights to the dam for 999 years...