-The Business Standard State budgets are raining sops to pull farmers' votes With elections staring at them, several state governments are suddenly waking up to the demands of farmers and offering sops to the agriculture sector in their budgets, even as farmer organisations say the state and Central governments should do more.    Karnataka, which pioneered the trend of having a separate agriculture budget--similar to the railway budget at the Centre — brought...

-The Hindustan Times The Mamata Banerjee led administration came under fire yet again after a review committee of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) issued a ‘refusal of certificate’ to a film Kangal Malsat for being critical of the Trinamool government and Mamata Banerjee led movements. “The way the departure of Tata Company was shown in the film it seemed to malign or at least look down upon a significant...

-The Hindustan Times West Bengal's Dum Dum Central Jail could put the notorious Abu Ghraib in a shade going by some of the disturbing incidents which have taken place there recently. A mere request for better food earned Bikram Mahato, undergoing trial for murder, a severe beating after which he was handcuffed and kept naked in a cell. And this is not an isolated incident in this jail. When Mahato had...

-The Hindu It deems key accused in Gujarat hooch tragedy unfit for bail Taking a serious view of the hooch tragedy in Gujarat, the Supreme Court said high courts and trial courts should show no leniency in granting of bail to accused in illicit liquor cases. The apex court cancelled bail to the key accused in the extant case, in which 147 persons died and 205 suffered serious health damage after consuming spurious...

-The Times of India MANGALORE: Mangalore tahsildar Ravichandra Naik will have to cough up Rs 5,000 as penalty for not providing information on time to an applicant under the RTI Act. Karnataka Information Commission penalized Ravichandra for failing to provide information under the Act to applicant B Prakash Bhat, who had sought information related to Bantwal taluk office, where at the time of the complaint Naik was the tahsildar. Prakash filed an...