-The Hindu Differences over appointments process has meant 45% of sanctioned judges’ posts are empty Amid the continuing tussle between the government and the judiciary over the contentious clause in the Memorandum of Procedure (MOP) on appointment of judges, the number of vacancies of High Court judges has grown to 470 out of the sanctioned strength of 1079. In other words over 45 per cent of the positions of High Court judges are...

-The Hindu More than a year after 13 women died in a mass sterilisation camp in Chhattisgarh, it is far from clear whether lessons have been learnt or justice done Sixteen months after a mass sterilisation camp conducted by the government of Chhattisgarh resulted in 13 deaths and 65 injuries, viscera reports — from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Ramanthapur, Hyderabad, and from the Central Drugs Laboratory, Kolkata, to go with...

-The Indian Express Giving this information to the media here on Tuesday, D V Sadananda Gowda claimed that transparency “can be achieved even without it”. In a setback to transparency in higher judiciary, the Central government has decided against bringing appointments to the higher judiciary under the RTI Act’s purview. Giving this information to the media here on Tuesday, Union Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda claimed that transparency “can be achieved...

-Business Standard Cess, surcharges come in handy New Delhi: Looking to leave its political imprint over spending in rural India, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has budgeted for a massive 31 per cent hike in its share of spending on nine big-ticket centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) in 2016-17 over last year's budgetary allocation. Last year's Budget mantra of 'cooperative federalism' has been sidestepped to favour political exigencies. To fund these schemes, which...

-The Telegraph Arun Jaitley today drew loud cheers from the fiscal conservatives as he displayed "prudence" and stuck to the fiscal deficit - which captures the government's borrowing requirements - target of 3.9 per cent of the GDP for 2015-16 and pegged it at 3.5 per cent of the GDP for 2016-17. As the achievement came despite all the problems that the Indian economy faced - the Economic Survey presented details of...