-The Times of India Kolkata may be crying for better hospitals and roads, but Trinamool Congress MPs representing the city will now spend their allotted development funds only on beautification. This directive came from Kolkata South MP Subrata Bakshi and was circulated among party councillors on Tuesday, leaving many of them fumbling for words.  The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is already on a frenzied drive to paint Kolkata blue - because chief minister...

-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 Telegraph A government report on the Niira Radia tapes that was submitted to the Supreme Court today mentioned discrepancies between the original recordings and the conversations broadcast by the media, suggesting they may have been tampered with. The report was submitted in a sealed cover to the bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly. It was not made public but Justice Singhvi read out parts of it that said...

Political parties shout from rooftops that politics should be delinked from criminals, but a look at their nominees for Phase I of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections makes it clear that both are inseparable and, in fact, two sides of the same coin. As many as 109 (out of the 284 analysed) candidates have declared in their affidavits that they are facing criminal cases and 46 of them have been booked...

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the apex body of Indian Muslims, is venting its ire against the Congress-led UPA government after it got no response to its demands for amendments in Right to Education (RTE) Act, Waqf Property and Direct Taxes Code Bills. Though the board has been holding meetings across the country to mobilise public opinion since June 2011, the campaign has been intensified in the poll-bound...