Monday round-up


* ECI adds Part VIII on Election Manifestos to the Model Code of Conduct, after discussion with political parties.

* The Hindu calls for disincentives against disruption in Parliament. The outgoing Lok Sabha passed 177 of 326 Bills.  248 and 297 Bills were enacted by 14 and 13th Lok Sabhas respectively.  The average number of days it met in a year has come down from 127 to 71.

*Faisal Devji writes in The Hindu that the laws that religious groups wish to enforce against literary and artistic works they consider offensive are colonial in origin, and presuppose the existence of an alien society driven by primordial identities. Besides, he writes that conflicts over free expression in India are not metaphysical battles waged between “religion” and “secularism,” but instead debates internal to the latter.  In Business Line, Ashok R.Chandran  has an interesting piece saying Penguin must be complimented for saving Doniger’s book ahead of a Court order as others could now buy the licence to publish from the copyright owner, that is, Doniger herself, and continue the legal battle. 
*Shanti Bhushan on why AAP is the only hope.
*Anirudha Nagar  of CHRI admires Centre’s decision to adopt pre-legislative consultation, but adds it could profit by learning from Kerala’s example.

*Ecologist Madhav Gadgil says his report on Western Ghats is being misinterpreted by everyone.
*Sunita Narain laments Economic Survey’s silence on forests
*Rajeev Dhavan has a piece in Mail Today on the passage of Telengana Bill in Parliament, suggests Babulal case (1959) (making states’ consent not mandatory for creating a new State,) was wrongly decided by the Supreme Court.

*Srivastav Krishna  suggests in TOI that the choice between small and big states is more complex than what it appears to be.

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