-The Economist West Bengal’s populist chief minister is doing badly. Yet she typifies shifts in power in India BUYER’S remorse is common enough in the dusty markets of Kolkata, a delightful if crumbling great city, once known as Calcutta and still capital of the state of West Bengal. Those who buy cheap plastic goods or plaster-of-Paris busts of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengal’s cultural hero, may come to regret their haste. Likewise, many who...

In 2010, Andhra Pradesh witnessed a series of suicides. These were not cases of farmers' suicides—a regular occurrence in the state which continues to be in the grip of an agrarian crisis. The victims in these cases happened to be the poorest of the poor; most of them illiterate dalits and adivasis. The first information reports (FIRs) of the police reveal that most of the suicides were due to coercive...

-The Telegraph   The Congress leadership today took care not to rub Mamata Banerjee the wrong way despite its apparent unease over a cartoon episode that led to the arrest of a professor in Bengal. There were instructions from the top to exercise restraint and spokespersons were told to avoid making any direct comment. At the official briefing, party spokesperson Manish Tiwari repeatedly said he was not aware of the details and making...

An across-the-board increase in petrol, diesel and cooking gas prices is likely by mid-May, immediately after the Budget is passed in Parliament.  "There is a lot of pressure on the government from oil companies to increase fuel prices but they been informally told to hold on till the Budget is passed in Parliament," a senior government official told HT. "There may be one small increase in petrol price that is likely to...

-PTI   The Cabinet on Wednesday approved a bill that seeks to regulate government purchases of above Rs 50 lakh through a transparent bidding process. The Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the public procurement bill that has a provision to debar bidders found engaged in corrupt practices, sources said. Currently, there is no overarching legislation governing public procurement by the central government and central public sector enterprises. The General Financial Rules,...