Corruption in the scheme may have nothing to do with fake children being shown to siphon out money, says Somasekhar Sundaresan.
According to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who spent 19 months in prison during the 1975 Emergency imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, it is not possible for anybody to convert a democratic India into a "dictatorship" in this day and age.
For successive governments the Election Commission remains a 'holy cow', where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
ED officials said the nine premises covered under the action included properties and offices belonging to Bhujbal, son Pankaj, nephew and former member of Parliament Samir and a few others.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday stoutly defended himself against the opposition's criticism of him travelling abroad in business class, saying that it was his dream for India that an 'aam aadmi' should also be able to travel the same way.
The SC also ordered the National Accountability Court to start a corruption case against Sharif, his sons -- Hussain and Hassan -- and daughter Maryam.
One of the urgent tasks ahead for the new government should be to improve public trust in the executive.
The new probe comes nearly four months after the FBI director announced the Bureau would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for what it dubbed "extreme careless" use of a private email server while secretary of state.
'George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position,' remembers Arun Jaitley.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who headed the Group of Ministers on CBI's autonomy, said government will give functional autonomy to it but the agency would be governed by the general rules of the executive government.
Indian industry has accused Narendra Modi of not delivering, but he could not have delivered faster than he has done, argues Vikram Singh Mehta, Chairman, Brookings India. Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com reports from Washington, DC.
'Our prime minister manifests a vision for India to be great and powerful, but the modernity required -- of thinking, attitudes, behaviour -- seems alien, if not abhorrent, to his constituency and associates,' says Ambassador K Shankar Bajpai.
The recent Supreme Court judgment on reservation on Mondau came in for criticism in the Lok Sabha, with members claiming that it would hit80 per cent population of the country comprising Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Backward Classes.
'These officers should have sat together and sorted things out.' 'And if things were not working out amicably then the other organisations which control the CBI -- be it the CVC or the prime minister's office or even the home ministry -- someone should have gone ahead and solved these problems rather than reducing it to this farcical situation.'
'Mr Modi, unless he changes his approach, may further legitimise the idea that it is perfectly all right for Hindus to dictate terms to the minorities.' 'Indira Gandhi's political expediency did permanent economic damage. Mr Modi's may end up causing permanent social damage,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'How can middlemen disappear as long as our political parties are sucking in massive amounts of black money?' 'There is an old political art well practised in New Delhi -- people create artificial problems and then solve it for you to earn your gratitude for a lifetime.'
The 2019 election gives the Indian public the same choice: Between growth and oligarchs (or, in our case, dynasts and crony capitalists). If we chose wisely, well and good. If not, well, we have the Nehruvian Rate of Growth and massive corruption to fall back on. In a large sense, it is a choice between the India of the Lutyens elites and the Bharat of the real citizen, says Rajeev Srinivasan.
'Here's a list of the things we should be reading more about in the media,' says Mitali Saran.
'The forces of good are on the run.' 'But dark times also challenge people to fight.' 'I believe Indians will rise against these dark times.'
Former Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir says he's being wrongly indicted by his successor CJI P Sathasivam and demands an apology. In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN, the former CJI also denies any leak of the National Eligibilty cum Entrance Test judgment.
Relieved after the Delhi high court's direction to the South Delhi Municipal Corporation to issue a provisional occupancy certificate, required to stage the fourth Test between India and South Africa, Delhi and District Cricket Association vice-president Chetan Chauhan welcomed the appointment of Justice Mukul Mudgal to oversee the affairs of the match at Feroz Shah Kotla.
Ex-South American soccer chief in FIFA scandal under house arrest.
While there is likely no bar on Jayalalithaa meeting with Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and his cabinet colleagues, she may not see senior government officials or see official files.
A vigilance department insider-turned-online journalist, busy taking on the establishment, comes to fore with the 2G tapes
64 Rajya Sabha MPs have signed the notice for impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice of India Deepak Misra under "five grounds of misbehaviour".
In writing to the government for a change in the law, the Election Commission has actually acknowledged the future possibility of countermanding polls to curb the use of money power, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
Counting has begun for the election which will be the second democratic transition of power in the nation's 70-year history.
'Manmohan Singh was blamed for administrative paralysis, but if you speak to any senior bureaucrat today, they are very bitter and say that files do not move. I am told that more than a thousand files are awaiting clearance.'
I'm still rooting for you, because you may yet be able to do something good for Delhi. But you and your party will have to get a reality check and some discipline, says Mitali Saran.
'It may take the AIADMK much more convincing than already, not only to try and bring around even the one-time Muslim voters of the party. 'More importantly, the party leadership may find it even more difficult to convince traditional party voters and cadres, who had admired Jaya's nonchalance to the party and leader ruling the Centre,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Security of tenure is important for a bureaucrat to work efficiently. There has to be some rationale behind posting a bureaucrat to a particular department, says former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian
The problem for OPS lies in the fact that most party MLAs believe Sasikala's clan was the force behind their obtaining the party nomination as much as it was Jaya's charisma that won them their seats in the May 2016 assembly polls.
Modi took on Gandhi for mocking him for chanting 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' at every meeting. The prime minister said he will continue to do so despite Gandhi's 'fatwa' on it.
Delhi's air is a desperate problem, but some of the solutions have been too desperate and unthinking.
Former Board of Control for Cricket in India chief Sharad Pawar wants Justice J N Patel, who is part of a three-man probe panel set up by the Board to investigate the IPL corruption scandal, to come clean on his reported links with the body's interim president, Shivlal Yadav. He also deprecated the presence of former India captain Ravi Shastri on the inquiry committee, citing conflict of interest.
According to Modi, the TMC's 'political syndicate' rules in the land of 'Vande Mataram' and 'Jana-Gana-Mana' and pursues appeasement and vote bank politics.
'The mainstream media is alive with discussion of the rights and wrongs of the situation.' 'Mass immolation is being rediscovered as a worthy goal for young women, and we have also consoled ourselves at length with the reflection that Muslims Are Bad while Rajputs Are Good,' says Mihir S Sharma.
'The American fear of the Chinese military is overblown. The countries that should be concerned are China's neighbours,' Jeffrey Wasserstrom tells Rahul Jacob.
Taking an apparent dig at Modi, Gandhi satirised a song, saying "Aapka toh lagta hai bas yahi sapna, ram ram japna garibo kaa maal apna (It seems your only dream is to take away money from poor while chanting the name of Ram)".
That's all it takes to protect an institution -- just one person with no past and no greed for the future, says Shekhar Gupta.
