Technically, we know how to check the black economy but the problem is political. More studies or committees and treaties with foreign governments are only to stall action. Another Joint Parliamentary Committee has been announced. The government has been trying to create an impression of being proactive with regard to tackling the black economy. The President's address and the speech by Sonia Gandhi in January mentioned the need to curb it....

The Nagla elementary school in this north Indian town looks like many other rundown government schools. Sweater-clad children sit on burlap sheets laid in rows on cold concrete floors. Lunch is prepared out back on a fire of burning twigs and branches. But the classrooms of Nagla are a laboratory for an educational approach unusual for an Indian public school. Rather than being drilled and tested on reproducing passages from...

  Madhya Pradesh witnessed as many as 27,254 suicides between January 1, 2007 and January 31, 2011, but only 13 farmers took their lives due to debt or poverty during this period. Amid claims and counter-claims over suicides by debt-ridden farmers, the state government provided these figures to the Assembly in a written reply on Tuesday. The government claimed only one farmer took his life due to debt/poverty in 2009, two each...

Estimated expenditure on farm and irrigation sectors is Rs. 17,857 crore The agricultural sector has been given prime place in the State Budget presented to the Legislative Assembly on Thursday by Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, who also holds the Finance portfolio. Mr. Yeddyurappa's focus on agriculture is reminiscent of the Union Budget presented by the first Janata Party Government of Morarji Desai in the post-Emergency era. The estimated expenditure on agriculture and irrigation...

The electronic post office launched this week has brought the familiar red and grey counters to your drawing room, making tiring trips and queuing up things of the past. The website www.epostoffice.gov.in offers money order service, stamps and e-tracking of registered posts to start with. It creates a virtual post office on computer screens and leads customers to the counters. The decision to launch an electronic post office was part of the...