-The Indian Express New Delhi: A tough challenge awaits the Aam Aadmi Party if it has to keep Arvind Kejriwal's promise of bringing in a Jan Lokpal bill within 15 days of forming the government in Delhi. Amending the existing Lokayukta Act would have involved getting the Lt Governor's assent and getting the amendment bill passed in the assembly, where getting the numbers would have been uncertain in itself. The party has,...

-The Hindu The Gujarat snooping incident should be used as an opportunity to ask how the government has assumed the power to order such invasive, unchecked surveillance. On November 15, a pair of investigative portals released a set of audio transcripts depicting an extraordinarily invasive and scrupulous surveillance of a young woman by the Gujarat Police. Its implications, limited as they may appear to those who consider privacy a besmirched value, in...

-The Hindu     The draft policy on the use of forest land is at odds with sound conservation principles and fails to plug holes in current guidelines that work to the advantage of project promoters The Supreme Court in July 2011 while delivering the Lafarge Judgment laid down guidelines on forest clearance procedures. These were to operate till a new regulatory mechanism was put in place. Two years after the judgment, the Ministry...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a report on Union government accounts tabled in Parliament last week, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has raised serious questions on the government's claim of its expenditure, saying the "integrity of the data provided to audit on Plan expenditure was doubtful". There is huge variation in Plan expenditure as per data maintained by different wings of the government. According to the finance accounts, the...

-The Hindu     Genetically modified crops, whose ecological effects are irreversible, could become a mainstay of Indian agriculture thanks to collusion between the government and the biotech industry The final report of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on field trials of genetically modified crops is packed with revelations on what is wrong with institutional governance and regulation in India when it comes to GMOs (genetically-modified organisms). The report's release late last...