FATEHABAD: An additional district and sessions court on Monday handed down life imprisonment to a former sarpanch of Chandrawal village, who allegedly mowed down daughter-in-law of a whistleblower RTI activist. Announcing the life sentence, additional district and sessions judge (ADJ) L N Jindal also slapped a fine of Rs 6,000 each on former sarpanch Dharambir Malik and driver Satbir Singh. Two whistleblowers Jagdish Kumar and Phool Singh of Chandrawal had sought information...

-The Wall Street Journal These days, Indian policymakers are debating how to create a vast new food entitlement program. There is talk of poor households struggling to cope with high food prices and malnourishment among their children. What you don’t hear much about, however, is the most tragic and outrageous consequence of India’s failure to feed its people adequately: starvation deaths. India is a nation that prides itself on having been self-sufficient in...

The poverty line figures given by the Planning Commission for 2009-10 have drawn strong criticism of foul play from politicians, social activists and some economists. Is the current poverty line justified? Why are there so many conflicting opinions? To understand this complex issue in simple terms,Indivjal Dhasmana interviewed Pronab Sen, principal advisor to the Planning Commission and former chief statistician. Edited excerpts: There is so much confusion around the poverty line....

 If the data provided by the Union government is to be believed, various bigwigs of the Congress, the Communist parties, the socialists and the Janata Party have been placed in the list of "freedom fighters". Prominent among these are Giani Zail Singh, P V Narasimha Rao, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Darbara Singh, Morarji Desai, Biju Patnaik, Devi Lal, R Venkataraman, Kamla Bahuguna, Babubhai Patel, Lalita Shastri (wife of Lal Bahadur Shastri), Indrani...

Move could save banks significant money spent on record-checking and documentation In what could usher in an era of paper-less, real-time authentication, the finance ministry is looking into allowing online Aadhaar authentication as a valid proof of identity for opening bank accounts. The ministry is considering an amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, or PMLA, to recognize online Aadhaar data to satisfy know-your-customer (KYC) requirements. This will pave the way for...