'The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea seeking to re-open a nine-year-old corruption case against BS Yediyurappa and Congress leader DK Shivakumar. However, a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said it will decide the locus standi of NGO Samaj Parivartana Samudaya, which is intervening and wants the case that was closed a few years ago re-opened. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for BS Yediyurappa, said the NGO was unnecessarily trying to open the corruption case that was quashed by the Karnataka High Court in December 2015...'
'India was until recently the fastest-growing major economy in the world, clocking annual rates of 7% or more and sparking predictions that it would soon overtake the likes of the U.K. and Germany. Now it looks like that rapid pace may have been overstated. An academic paper by a former chief economic adviser to Prime Minister Narendra Modi estimates annual growth averaged closer to 4.5% a year in the fiscal years from 2011-12 through 2016-17, and says recent changes to the way gross domestic product is measured are problematic.
'Our elected representatives across the board abhor the Right to Information Act. For years they’ve been assaulting the law with different amendments, rules and provisions to weaken it and deny information to citizens. The latest assault is happening right now in Parliament and it seems unlikely that anyone can do anything about it. But, at the very least, maybe we can talk about it!... First, to give some context on what the heck is going on, a quick recap on what the RTI does and why elected folks are scared of it.
'On 10 and 11 July, the governments of the United Kingdom and Canada hosted a global conference on media freedom, in London. Over 1,500 ministers, diplomats, politicians, jurists, academics and journalists from over 100 countries gathered to avow the world’s commitment to promoting media freedom. Vinod Jose, the executive editor of The Caravan, was invited to speak on a panel discussing religion and media.
'From accusations of involvement in the Moin Qureshi money laundering case to allegedly snooping on a CBI official, Goel is the first head of India's external intelligence agency to come to office mired in controversy... Samant Goel, promoted on Wednesday as chief of India’s primary external intelligence agency, is the first head of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) to carry the taint of being associated with individuals who were the subject of an anti-corruption investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation...'
'Within a week of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections coming to a close, the Election Commission (EC) constituted working groups headed by senior functionaries to review specific areas of concern. The EC need not have bothered with this post mortem; it is clear to everyone that this election was dominated by three ‘M’s: money, machine and media. The fourth ‘M’ – the model code of conduct – was reduced to waste paper.
'It is now official that the country has indeed been witnessing jobless growth. Months after rejecting the claim by a leaked report that India's unemployment rate had touched a 45-year high, the government admitted the same on Friday with the latest data showing that joblessness had indeed touched 6.1 per cent in the 12-month period from July 2017 to June 2018. The government had earlier brushed aside a leaked official report on the country's poor job scenario and maintained that the unemployment data was yet to be finalised...'
'RTI queries have revealed, among other things, that the micro-controller used in the current elections is not one-time programmable, as consistently claimed by the Election Commission... Free and fair elections form the bedrock of our constitutionally guaranteed democracy. As vigilant citizens, it is desirable to adopt the stance – “In God we trust, everything else requires evidence”. Given the heightened anxieties over EVMs and VVPATs, it is time to publicise some information I obtained from the ECI and the EVM+VVPAT manufacturers – Bharat Electronics Ltd.
'Even as analysts continue to point out various discrepancies in the exit poll results, reports of possible security breaches in EVM strongrooms have started pouring in. The Election Commission of India has been quick enough to post its responses but not many, including a former Chief Election Commissioner, are convinced. In many places across north India, workers of opposition parties alleged that unauthorised vehicles were allowed to enter the premises of the counting centres where EVMs are currently stored.
'The Election Commission was recently criticised by the media, transparency activists and opposition parties for its delay in not taking action on complaints of Model Code of Conduct violations by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thereafter, it was also accused of deliberately not uploading the complaints or its orders on them on its website. The matter was even raised in the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the poll panel finally relented and uploaded the details on its site.
