-ThePrint.in From Jayalalithaa to Amarinder Singh, chief ministers throughout the years seem to have ignored the Seniority principle in choosing chief secretaries. The position of the chief secretary is arguably the most crucial civil service post in any state. Normally, the senior-most serving Indian Administrative Service officer in the cadre is expected to be posted and officers senior to them, who are on central deputation, can be overlooked. Apart from suitability, the...

-The Hindu Advocate says the move was unconstitutional and illegal A writ petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday challenging the August 5 notification of the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order of 2019, which amends Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and scraps its 65-year-old predecessor — The Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order of May 14, 1954 — as unconstitutional, illegal and arbitrary. The petition filed by...

-The Indian Express Jharkhand is one of the five states that had advertised a scheme under which doctors could quote their own salaries. The others are Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. New Delhi: Plagued by shortage of specialists in community health centres in rural areas, states have granted huge salary hikes to paediatricians, surgeons and gynaecologists posted in rural areas — in states such as Jharkhand and Tripura, these...

-The Indian Express The police force needs to be freed from the stranglehold of the executive and given functional autonomy to enforce the rule of law. The Supreme Court’s directions can help achieve this transformation. The battle for police reforms has been going on for the last 22 years. The Supreme Court took 10 years to give a historic judgment in 2006. Since then it has been a struggle to get the...

-Hindustan Times With the rising costs of campaigns, parties have increasing incentives to field richer candidates with criminal cases against them — precisely those who do a worse job of representing and working for the welfare of their constituents. Are Members of Parliament (MPs) genuinely interested in giving back to the voters who elected them? Since 1993, MPs have been allotted money under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS)...