-The Telegraph Trinamul leaders in Singur today urged party MPs and MLAs to donate a month’s salary to help raise a fund for farmers who lost their land to the Tata Nano factory. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has time and again said that the 400 acres for which the farmers have refused to accept compensation would be returned to them but the government is engaged in legal tangle with Tata Motors since...

-PTI A government sub-committee looking into probable sources of funds for urban transport projects in the 12th Plan has suggested the creation of a national fund, resource for which can be generated through taxes on vehicles and petrol consumption.  The recent report of the Sub-Committee on Financing Urban Infrastructure in the 12th Plan said investments to the tune of 87,000 crore were required in the Five Year Plan duration.  The huge investment needs...

The professional divide on Tendulkar's estimation goes a long way back A committee is being set up to devise yet another methodology to estimate poverty in India. The step has led to some unhappiness among economists and experts that it amounts to junking the services and competence of an expert like the late Suresh Tendulkar, whose study is sought to be replaced. Under pressure from all sides over its estimate of people...

-CNN-IBN The great Mughal emperor Akbar once asked if there was any man in his court unbound by his wife's command. The huge mass of his courtiers and public was stunned and stood huddled together barring one meek-looking man, who stepped away and stood alone. Akbar was curious and asked how such a submissive fellow was the only one brave enough to defy his wife. "I am not defying my wife,...

-The Business Standard Rising per capita income and growth have reduced poverty among all classes, including socially-disadvantaged classes. Though there are skeptics who argue that growth has bypassed the socially disadvantaged classes, the analysis of National Sample Survey (NSS) data proves otherwise. But, high prevalence of poverty in the states where more SC, ST populations are living still remains same. A Columbia University, USA, study that had analysed the NSS figures from...