-PTI   Dubbing union cabinet’s approval of the Mines Bill, 2011 as “too little and too late”, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today said it would not help poor people living in mineral rich areas. Mr. Patnaik’s reaction came shortly after the union cabinet approved the new Mines and Mineral Development and Regulation (MMDR) Bill, 2011. Stating that the new bill has provision for 26 per cent profit sharing on coal and an additional...

-The Times of India   After taking lead in helping the country draw up the Rigth to Information Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Rajasthan has become the first state in the country to have drafted a policy underlining the Importance and the need to preserve and secure common land (commons) in rural areas. The government has issued a series of orders to facilitate the process and aims...

Planning Commission’s affidavit to the Supreme Court states that adjusting for inflation, the poverty line for an urban person is Rs 32.5 per day per person and for a rural person it is Rs 29.3 per day per person. This has raised an outcry in media and the urban middle class, who consider them outrageously low. Based on these poverty lines, Planning Commission estimates that there are 40.74 crore persons...

-The Hindustan Times   The much-criticised new poverty cutoff — proposed recently by the Planning Commission, it sets the bar for urban poverty at Rs 32 spent per person per day — would exclude many beggars in Mumbai, a survey has found. The survey, conducted over the past six months by University of Mumbai’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Centre for Social Justice in hutments across the city, found that only nine of 1,043...

-The Indian Express   The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is being increasingly questioned, as reports emerge about the divisions within the agency on calculating the loss to the public exchequer from the 2G licencing process. The CAG shot for drama in its high-profile press conferences, in which eye-catching numbers were trumpeted that became firmly ensconced in our collective memory. The 2G report was brandished triumphantly, like a World Cup trophy,...