Well-known PR firms, professional designers, and ad agencies served the richer parties and candidates. They made up “news” items in the standard fonts and sizes of the desired newspapers and even “customised” the items to make them seem exclusive in different publications.  So you thought you’d had enough of Page 3? Newspapers in Maharashtra think otherwise. Some of them had more than one, on several days during the recent state...

The World Bank today finalized its Access to Information Policy, which makes the Bank a transparency leader among international institutions.  The policy was approved by the Board of Executive Directors on November 17, 2009 and will become effective July 1, 2010. The final text of the Policy paper reflects the comments and requests for clarifications sought by the Board during the November 17 discussion. “With the adoption of a progressive disclosure...

After Copenhagen, there is no “developing world” — there are several.  About 45,000 travelled to the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen — the vast majority convinced of the need for a new global agreement on climate change. So why did the summit end without one? Key governments do not want a global deal: Until the end of this summit, it appeared that all governments wanted to keep the keys to...

The world’s biggest industrial disaster took place in Bhopal on December 3, 1984 taking a toll of 20,000 lives and affecting 5.69 lakh people. The twentyfifth anniversary of that massive mishap at the Union Carbide plant in the city is being observed across the country today. That disaster is a crying shame for all our citizens. Why? For three reasons. First, the real culprit behind the mishap, the Union Carbide management,...

The increase in the number of civil cases in a country is its social mascot, as it symbolises the abundance of law abiding civilised citizens accepting the authority of the judiciary to get their grievances redressed. Otherwise, they would have turned to self-retaliation or employed roughnecks, a usual practice in America and Britain enkindled by their criminal heritage, to enforce justice in their own way; hence all civil litigants may...