Last week's column, “The plight of Dalits and the news media” (October 25, 2010), has generated a lively and interesting response from several readers. The column was about the prioritisation of the tasks before the National Commission for the Scheduled Castes (NCSC) by its new Chairman, P.L. Punia (not P.J. Punia as erroneously mentioned in the column.) The concern of most who wrote was over the failure of successive governments...

Even as the popular demand for creation of separate Vidarbha state and development of the region is doing rounds for some time, a gross negligence on part of both, the politicians and the bureaucrats implementing the state government schemes has surfaced. Sources close to the divisional commissionerate told PTI that as many as Rs1193.88 crore out of a total allocation and release of Rs2997.03 crore of Vidarbha package have not been...

The centre has asked the states to strengthen their public distribution systems (PDS) to minimise the impact of high inflation on the poor, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here Monday. 'The central government has requested the states to strengthen their public distribution systems to ensure that the vulnerable groups of the society are not adversely affected by the current level of inflation,' Mukherjee said at the second annual conference of finance...

The trend of government officials approaching the High Court against the Central Information Commission's (CIC) decision imposing fines on PIOs for delay in information to applicants under the RTI Act has started a debate amongst the RTI activists. Activists said very few information commissioners have levied monetary fine on the Public Information Officers (PIOs), who do not comply with the provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. And now the...

The Union Minister of State for Communications & IT, Shri Sachin Pilot has said today that nationwide random testing of radiations emitted by mobile towers will commence from November 16, 2010 onwards by the Telecom Engineering and Resource Monitoring (TERM) Cells. The progress in this regard and compliance levels will be monitored centrally, and non-compliance will result in fines and penalties envisaged in existing guidelines and amended license conditions, including...