Justice Soumitra Sen may be making history as only the second judge on his way to impeachment but he still enjoys a big salary. Despite being indicted many times for corruption, the judge has comfortably managed to exploit the loopholes in the system. Excluding allowances and perks for fuel, attendants, house rent, phone and medical Bills, Justice Sen's salary today stands at Rs. 80,000 per month. That means roughly Rs. 160,000...

Even as railway minister Mamata Banerjee opposes government’s role in acquiring land for private companies , the contentious land acquisition (amendment) bill figures in the list of business for the winter session of Parliament beginning next week. The bill has been hanging fire in the wake of opposition from the Trinamool Congress leader, who recently skipped a meeting convened by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to evolve a consensus within the ruling...

The Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday rolled back its decision on payment of power Bills by farmers and restored the facility of free electricity for their agricultural tubewells with immediate effect. The state government had, earlier this year, introduced a system under which farmers were made to pay a part of the power Bills which were to be reimbursed to them as “productivity bonus”. The proposal to roll back the decision was not...

The centre has asked the states to strengthen their public distribution systems (PDS) to minimise the impact of high inflation on the poor, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here Monday. 'The central government has requested the states to strengthen their public distribution systems to ensure that the vulnerable groups of the society are not adversely affected by the current level of inflation,' Mukherjee said at the second annual conference of finance...

Block vehicular and railway traffic across Punjab, demand relaxation of paddy procurement norms Various factions of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and organisations of landless labourers blocked the railway traffic at Moga and ten other locations in Punjab on Friday. They also halted the vehicular traffic on many highways, demanding relaxation in the procurement norms of paddy. The protesters claimed that adverse weather conditions had affected the quality of grains, and said...