Election Commission of India (ECI) has initiated a move to check insertion of "paid news" items in the print and electronic media by political parties and candidates during elections. State chief electoral officers (CEOs) have been directed to form a committee in each district for the purpose. The move assumes significance in view of the fact that assembly elections are round the corner in Bihar. The practice of getting advertorials...

Rural television viewers who want more than the half-an-hour of Krishi Darshan daily, there is good news. It may soon be beamed 24x7. The rural development ministry has decided to launch a 24-hour channel for India’s large rural population to make them “adequately aware” of the government’s umpteen schemes. Krishi Darshan would be the model — the proposed channel’s programmes would deal with agriculture, land, water and sanitation. But “it will have...

As some members object to mention of certain media houses The Press Council of India (PCI) has decided not to forward the detailed report on ‘paid news,' prepared by its sub-committee, following divisions in the Council, with some members objecting to the fact that specific media houses had been identified as offenders in that document. Sources said 23 of the Council's 30 members turned up for Friday's meeting and, with...

When Nirupama Pathak left this remote mining region for graduate school in New Delhi, she seemed to be leaving the old India for the new. Her parents paid her tuition and did not resist when she wanted to choose her own career. But choosing a husband was another matter. Her family was Brahmin, the highest Hindu caste, and when Ms. Pathak, 22, announced she was secretly engaged to a young man...

The Centre has protested to Uttar Pradesh over the latter prefixing its name to MGNREGA, the flagship job scheme from the Congress stable. The Union rural development ministry has asked UP to change the title of a rulebook for its grievance redressal system under the job scheme, saying it has been named after the state when MGNREGA is a central law. The Mayawati regime has released a rulebook named "UPNREGA...