The government has decided to issue biometric PAN cards to taxpayers across the country to weed out the problem of duplicate and fake ones. The decision was taken recently by the finance ministry and it comes in the wake of a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report that asked the income tax department to ensure that a single tax payer is not issued multiple cards. The proposed new biometric Permanent Account Number...

A decision to videograph the proceedings of the Joint Committee on Lokpal Bill as sought by Gandhian Anna Hazare have to be taken by the drafting panel itself, its member Union Minister Salman Khurshid said today. Responding to a question on the demand by Hazare to videograph and make public proceedings of the Committee to ensure transparency in the drafting process, Khurshid said, "The Joint Drafting Committee is supposed to decide...

Anna Hazare, the 72-year-old social activist and Gandhian, on Monday slammed Union Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal for reportedly saying that the Lokpal Bill will not eradicate corruption from India. Hazare said that if Sibal has no faith in the proposed Lokpal then he should resign from the committee that has been formed to draft a stronger anti-corruption law. "If Kapil Sibal feels that nothing will happen from Lokpal Bill, he should...

Tribal dominated districts have turned the theory of bias for male offspring on its head, while literacy levels have registered a surprisingly high growth, perhaps signalling a marginal improvement in the overall social structure of a largely underdeveloped state held hostage to political instability and Left wing extremism. According to provisional data of Census 2011 for Jharkhand, released by director of census operations Sunil Kumar Burnwal today, tribal dominated districts like...

After raising the issue of nepotism in the newly-appointed joint committee on Lokpal Bill, yoga guru Baba Ramdev on Sunday backtracked saying that he had no problem with inclusion of father-son duo Shanti and Prashant Bhushan in the drafting panel. "The question of nepotism was raised by the media and not me. When I was asked about it, I said that though we have played a role in the Jan Lokpal...