-The Telegraph The CRPF will review standard operating procedures (SOPs) on tackling Maoists’ “human shields” and conducting night operations, sources said today, less than a week after Friday’s controversial operation in Chhattisgarh that resulted in 19 deaths. The move came on a day a preliminary report by a panel of state Congress Leaders suggested six of those killed were villagers in their teens. Yesterday, Union tribal affairs minister Kishore Chandra Deo had...

-The Indian Express   Time to take the bolder steps, bring FDI to small towns When the GDP falls below 7 per cent, we need to start worrying. When it is less than 6 per cent, we must treat it as a crisis situation. Growth models show that the robust investment rates already achieved, and twice the productivity growth achieved in the 1980s and ’90s, will get us 8 per cent growth. This...

-The Economic Times This is the time of the year when the country's weakest spots are exposed; despite our high growth and emerging-economy status, we continue to depend on the rains to boost rural incomes and provide a cushion in a slow economy. All eyes are on rainfall in July, which is crucial for the kharif crop that accounts for about half the food grain output. The consequences on inflation are, of...

-PTI Yet another book has levelled an allegation that P V Narasimha Rao had connived at the demolition of Babri Masjid, claiming that the late Prime Minister had sat in a puja when the kar sevaks began pulling it down and rose only when it was over. The charge relating to the demolition on Dec 6, 1992 has been made by eminent journalist Kuldip Nayar in his soon-to-be released autobiography "Beyond the...

-NDTV Could two million tonnes of wheat produced in the country end up as cattle fodder overseas even as millions go hungry at home? A day after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the export of 2 million tonnes of wheat, Right to Food activists have written to the Prime Minister slamming the move. They want a reversal of the decision. The letter, signed by a number of Leading activists including...