-Live Mint Govt reiterates it will crack down hard on tax evaders, defends steps introduced in Finance Bill to check evasion The government on Tuesday reiterated its intention to crack down hard on tax evaders and defended some of the stringent provisions introduced in the Finance Bill last week to check evasion, including granting wider powers of arrest to taxmen and making certain offences non-bailable. Finance minister P. Chidambaram, in his budget speech...

-The Indian Express Nagri, Bhojpur: Residents of Nagri in Bihar’s Bhojpur had spent 12 years waiting for justice after the killing of 10 people, nine of them of scheduled castes and OBCs and one a Muslim, during a caste attack on May 11, 1998. And after they felt justice had finally come, it proved short-lived. “First, we had to wait 12 years before the lower court finally handed the death sentence to...

-Live Mint An investigation found DCGI cleared drugs without conducting mandatory clinical trials After five rounds of consultations in six months, a committee tasked with making recommendations on cleaning up India’s drugs-approval process and ending the cosy relationship between doctors, pharmaceutical companies and government officials had no suggestions to offer by way of a crackdown. It has, instead, suggested setting up 20 sub-committees. The report submitted to the health ministry in November is...

-The Economic Times The government plans to revive cultivation of crops that make Punjab's iconic "makki ki roti and sarson ka saag" -- maize and mustard -- along with horticulture and fodder to breathe life into the stressed soil and the rapidly depleting water table in the green-revolution state. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is pushing hard for crop diversification in Punjab and has appointed an inter-ministerial panel on crop diversification led by Agriculture...

-The Hindu “The purpose of a Budget – and the job of a Finance Minister,” P. Chidambaram declared in his speech, “is to create the economic space and find the resources to achieve the socio economic objectives.” Now that the presentation of and the spate of initial responses to the budget are behind us, it may be appropriate to ask how far the Minister went in accomplishing his self-defined task. Mr. Chidambaram...