-Outlook Mumbai/ Guwahati: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a vigorous push for a digitally connected India, former CIC Shailesh Gandhi today said it was the issue of transparency over which he ought to do something first in a time-bound manner to help realise his dream. Gandhi also termed "Digital India" campaign, a pet project of the Modi Government, as "expensive" and "with no real benefits", as he stressed that only with...

-The Hindu Of the two crore pending cases, two-thirds are criminal At the rate at which cases were disposed by India’s district courts last month, India could get rid of all pending cases in ten years, an analysis of new official data shows. Six states, however – Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir – disposed fewer cases than were filed during the month, indicating that at this rate,...

-Deccan Herald MoF wants more transparency and public involvement For the first time, the government has decided to go for crowdsourcing in the Budget-making exercise and invited suggestions from the public for India’s Budget to be presented in February-March next year. The step has been taken to infuse more transparency into the Budget-making and increase people‘s participation in the mammoth exercise. “In order to infuse more transparency into the Budget-making exercise and to have...

-The Hindu The pendency statistics would be updated by district court complexes on a daily basis. Inviting the public to keep tabs on the burgeoning case pendency rates in their local courts, the Supreme Court on Saturday launched the public access portal of the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) district courts in a step towards demystification of the judicial process for the ordinary citizen. With this, the ambitious effort to digitise court system...

-Economic and Political Weekly After coming to power in 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government took several measures to dilute the pro-poor provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013. Though it has backed down, several questions remain over the way the Modi government has dealt with the issue of land acquisition. Santosh Verma (santosh.econ@gmail.com) is at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. Land acquisition—by private corporations or the state—has raised vital...