-The Hindu   Faced with strong reactions to its Affidavit on the poverty line estimates filed in the Supreme Court on Monday, the Planning Commission may re-visit the issue and, if necessary, file an amendment in the court. Sources in the Commission indicated that another committee of experts was likely to be set up to dispel the “confusion” and arrive at a more realistic estimate of poverty numbers that were “multi-dimensional” and to...

-The Times of India   Eighty-two of the 97 people accused in the Mirchpur killing of a 70-year-old dalit and his physically challenged daughter were acquitted by a Delhi court for lack of evidence. The then SHO of the area, Vinod Kajal, was also acquitted by the court. All the arrested are from the Jat community, who allegedly killed Tara Chand and his 17-year-old handicapped daughter after they burnt down Chand's hut. The...

The Planning Commission, headed by the prime minister, has filed an Affidavit in the Supreme Court quantifying the daily poverty line for an adult as Rs 26 in rural, and Rs 32 in urban India. At today’s relentlessly increasing prices, Rs 26 will not get a manual worker even one nutritious meal a day — leave alone the 2,400 calories he is required to eat to enable him to work,...

Planning Commission Affidavit not to be taken as the last word' An embarrassed government swung into damage control mode on Wednesday, in response to widespread criticism of an Affidavit filed by the Planning Commission that suggested that an individual income of just Rs 25 a day constituted adequate “private expenditure on food, education and health,” at a time when even the minimum wage was pegged at over Rs.100 a day, the...

-The Economic Times   The Planning Commission's Affidavit to the Supreme Court that anyone with a monthly expenditure of more than Rs 965 in urban areas and Rs 781 in rural areas would be deemed 'not poor' has been greeted with howls of indignation. Rightly so! Though both numbers - adjusted for inflation - are an improvement over the Tendulkar Committee's numbers of Rs 447 a month in rural areas and Rs...