-The Financial Express   Come next financial year, the PAN card is likely to become the most potent tool for the Income Tax Department to unearth black money, tax evasion and instances of criminal financing in the country. A recent directive of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to the I-T Dept has asked its officials to launch a special drive against those who have "not furnished their PAN (Permanent Account Number)"...

The Planning Commission and the finance ministry are at odds over the accounting of plan and non-plan schemes in the budget.  While the finance ministry is pushing for inclusion of more than 10 non-plan schemes in the planned budget for the next financial year, the Planning Commission is resisting the move as it would eat into the share of existing schemes. The commission's reluctance follows an expected cut or flat allocation...

Like many board games that were developed in India, of which chess is perhaps the most important and famous, the game of “snakes and ladders” too emerged in this country a long time ago. With its balancing of snakes that pull you down and ladders that take you up, this game has been used again and again as a metaphor for life, telling us about our fortunes and misfortunes, and...

-The Telegraph   Sonia Gandhi decried corruption in the rural jobs scheme as a “crime against the poor”, the words coming on a day the Supreme Court cancelled over 100 graft-tainted 2G licences. “We cannot ignore cases of corruption in this scheme. Corruption in MGNREGA is a crime against the poor people,” the Congress chief said at a programme organised here to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the scheme. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...

The shortage in the number of applicants for seats reserved for less privileged children in private schools appears to be an advantage for the institutions to prevent the proper implementation of the Right to Education Act in the city. The RTE Act makes it mandatory for all private schools to reserve 25 per cent of the seats at the entry class level for underprivileged children and teach them free of cost....