-The Telegraph New Delhi: A parliamentary panel has disapproved of the process the Planning Commission and the Centre follow to identify below poverty line (BPL) people, adding to the recent controversy over a 15 per cent reduction in poverty. The standing committee on finance, headed by the BJP's Yashwant Sinha, has outlined flaws in the methodology followed by the Planning Commission and the government to identify the poor. The measure is key...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Even as the government plans to seek a review of the Supreme Court order disqualifying MPs/MLAs immediately upon their conviction, the Election Commission has moved to operationalize the judgment by asking all the states and Union territories to track and promptly report conviction of MPs/MLAs to Speaker or chairman of the concerned House and to the poll panel. The EC, in a communication sent to chief...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Buoyed by the action taken by young IAS officer Durga Sakthi Nagpal against sand mafia, the union ministry of environment and forest, which has constituted a committee to inquire into the allegations of illegal sand mining in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Budh Nagar district, has asked for the panel report by Friday. The three-member committee will also look into "adverse environmental impact" of such activities and...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Eliminating Planning Commission's role in etching the poverty line and instead tasking expert government agencies to determine India's below poverty line population may help depoliticize the exercise, a former top NSSO official has said. Former director-general of National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) Jogeshwar Dash feels the Planning Commission's mandate of framing policy clashes with estimating poverty ratios that are an outcome of strategies the panel devises. "Poverty...

-ANI WASHINGTON: Volunteers and Friends of Aam Aadmi Party in the United States, Singapore and Australia organized protests during the weekend against the planned amendment to the Right to Information (RTI) Act in the upcoming parliament session. The protests were planned to show the strong public demand for transparency in political parties as well as the anger against the any amendments to the act by vested interests. Protesters gathered in front of the...