Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat on Sunday repeated the demand for the setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the 2G spectrum allocation scam, saying that the issue needed to be investigated on a canvas larger than the Comptroller and Auditor General's “limited” inquiry. Considering the gravity of the irregularities, a “wider and comprehensive” probe was required into the 2G spectrum allocation, Mr. Karat...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

Mamata Banerjee today asked the government to withdraw its decision to decontrol oil prices, the demand coming on a day arch-rival Left announced a weeklong protest from early next month over the petrol price hike. Both spoke of the burden on the masses as the bitter enemies rehearsed for poll battles ahead: in Bengal, where Mamata is looking to topple the Marxists, and in Kerala, where the ruling Left is on...

NC Saxena , the influential former bureaucrat who is a member of the National Advisory Council, has raised the ineffectiveness of government programmes among tribal people in a paper that will come up for discussion before the Sonia-Gandhi headed council. The government relied on a report by Saxena last year in denying clearance to a large mining project by Vedanta Resources in Orissa’s Niyamgiri hills . This had attracted international...

Students at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore raised questions on the huge cost of the newly-launched unique identification project, the security of the system and what was being done to prevent its possible misuse, but they got no clear answer In the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) that I graduated from way back in 1983, dialogue and debate were the essence of true talent. Those who were revered most...