To give the much-needed impetus to the farm sector, the Government will have its first agriculture survey this financial year in February on the lines of the economic survey. Sources said that the Agriculture Ministry’s apprehensions on the production growth to meet the National Food Security Bill’s demand have concerned the Government. Consequently, three months ago Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked the Agriculture Ministry to carry a separate survey to give...

The protest leader Anna Hazare appeared to strike a deal with the police early Thursday morning that would enable him to leave a local jail and begin staging a hunger strike against corruption later in the day, according to a close aide and reports in the Indian news media. One of Mr. Hazare’s aides, Kiran Bedi, announced via Twitter that Mr. Hazare had accepted a police offer to limit any...

-The Indian Express   Rajya Sabha has taken up an impeachment motion against a judge, and the solemnity of the exercise inevitably framed the backdrop against which the question of Justice Soumitra Sen’s continuance in the Calcutta high court will be decided. The requisite MPs’ petition that set up the process cited two allegations for inquiring into misbehaviour: that Sen had misappropriated money he received in his capacity as high court-appointed receiver,...

PM's announcement in I-Day address went unnoticed in public focus on corruption Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's announcement on Monday on setting up a commission “to make suggestions for improvements at all levels of education” has largely gone unnoticed amid the public focus on corruption. Even though his Independence Day address did not elaborate on its mandate, sources in the government indicated, the recommendations of the proposed commission should add up to...

MFIs in Andhra Pradesh are paying for the sins of their past. Market for new loans has dried up, banks have turned off their spigots while the AP government is content to sit back and watch. It has been eleven months since the Andhra Pradesh government issued an ordinance—later converted into the Andhra Pradesh Micro-Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Act—which, the microfinance industry hoped, would be the magic remedy that...