-The Asian Age Sonia Gandhi’s economic and political ideology may have apparently triumphed over that of Manmohan Singh. The neo-liberal finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram may be conveying an impression that he’s turned socialist with a vengeance by increasing taxes on the rich in the run-up to the 16th general elections. But the truth is that Mr Chidambaram has made certain assumptions about subsidies, inflation and the expected growth of gross domestic product...

-PTI Claiming that the "downturn is more or less over", the pre-Budget Economic Survey on Wednesday projected an optimistic 6.1 to 6.7 per cent growth in the next fiscal and made a strong call for cutting subsidises. While pegging the GDP growth at an estimated 5 per cent for the current fiscal, the Survey tabled in Parliament by finance minister P Chidambaram said "...the overall economy is expected to grow in the...

-The Hindu Subsidies on cooking gas, kerosene and diesel have resulted in perverse outcomes not envisaged when they were introduced With the Aadhaar-based direct cash transfer scheme facing so many glitches in implementation, any hopes that the country’s energy sector can soon dismount the subsidy tiger it has been riding so dangerously have receded into the background. Had the Aadhaar scheme worked satisfactorily, the next logical step would have been to extend...

-Outlook The cap on subsidised LPG has the UPA regime worried Something Cookin’     There’s definitely going to be a relook at the six-subsidised-cylinders cap     Fear that LPG could cause a replay of the “onion impact” on 2014 polls     Pressure from all parties for increasing number of subsidised cylinders     Central government keen that states too share burden of extra cylinders      But that could be tricky when discussing Centre-state revenue-sharing Cylinder Pricing     Subsidised cylinders...

-PTI NAGAPATTINAM (TN): Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan visited the Keezhavelur and Karunavali villages of the district on Tuesday where more than 10 acres of farm land has been affected due to leakage of crude oil from an abandoned pipeline belonging to the ONGC. The pipeline had been laid to take crude oil to the Narimanam refineries. The pipeline was abandoned as it developed cracks, officials said. Natarajan told reporters she would speak to...