News coverage of the Aarushi case, Sachin in Rajya Sabha, and the revelation of the Bofors whistleblower added little to the discussion Have you noticed that the hilarious news spoof, The Week That Wasn’t (CNN-IBN) bears an uncanny resemblance to every day’s TV news/ discussions? We’ll call it, the news that wasn’t. News. And it goes something like this: Monday, Nupur Talwar, denied bail, was jailed in Aarushi and Hemraj murder cases. All...
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Poison in India’s groundwater posing national health crisis-Nitin Sethi
Depletion of groundwater and its increasing pollution could be leading to a silent, nationwide public health crisis as aquifers in many stretches across India are becoming unfit for drinking, according to the government's own figures. Data submitted in Parliament by the water resources ministry on Monday shows groundwater in pockets of 158 out of the 639 districts has gone saline. It says in pockets across 267 districts, groundwater contains excess fluoride;...
More »Govt’s bid to widen tax base comes unstuck-Rajeev Deshpande
The government's efforts to widen the tax base are not paying off. New tax payers added over the past three years show a decline, while a staggering 89% of existing assessees are bunched in the lowest income bracket of Rs 5 lakh or less a year. Numbers point to a worrying trend the government would want to reverse as while 17,84,709 assessees were added in 2008-09, the figure slid to 16,75,069...
More »Unpacking India’s Internet Censorship Debate-Shivam Vij
Recent debates on Internet censorship in India have focused to the allegedly free-for-all nature of the internet. Those of us who have argued against internet censorship have been somewhat misrepresented as arguing for absolute freedom whereby the reasonable restrictions laid down in Article 19 (A) of the Constitution of India don’t apply. Nothing could be farther than the truth. It has been said that the internet can be used to incite...
More »DNA investigation: Nabard’s lies on restructuring process-Sandeep Pai
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) set up to finance agriculture and rural development, has been giving evasive replies to specific questions raised by the Union finance ministry and by Parliament on the nature of recommendations made by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to restructure the bank. Some MPs believe that the restructuring violates the role mandated for Nabard by Parliament. DNA earlier reported that the restructuring/repositioning of Nabard...
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