Food Ministry asked how it proposed to reform PDS to plug leakages “Present procurement of foodgrains is between 50 and 55 million tonnes” In the first meeting on Friday of the experts group set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to examine the recommendations of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on the proposed National Food Security Bill, senior officials were asked to come up with firm calculations. Chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic...

NIIRA RADIA, the lobbyist at the heart of India’s audacious multi-billion telecom swindle, inaugurated a Krishna temple she funded in south Delhi on her birthday — that, interestingly, coincides with Indira Gandhi’s. Those present on the occasion said Radia prayed for long, presumably seeking divine intervention to wriggle out of the country’s biggest scandal. Before the temple visit, notices from the country’s Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax (IT) Department and the...

Two elders of nearby villages, with experience of a panchayat election, were among those who cast their vote today for the state’s first-ever rural polls, united in their scepticism, but hopeful that the chosen ones would deliver on their one and only need: water. Saiba Tuddu (62) of Debanki village of Potka block in East Singhbhum wants to elect a mukhiya who will pay attention to their problem, helping him erase...

Business was derailed in Parliament for the tenth day on Thursday as Opposition and the Treasury benches vociferously raised matters of corruption leading to adjournment of both the Houses, causing the public exchequer well over Rs 60 crore in the winter session till now. Amid pandemonium, both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on Thursday were adjourned for an hour barely a minute after they met and later adjourned for the...

The people are showing who the boss is. The weapon in their hands is the internet, which, in the last five days, has seen frantic activism against "power brokering" by journalists in collusion with corporate groups and top government politicians. It all began with the publication of sensational tapes related to the 2G spectrum scam by two magazines over the weekend. Two high-profile journalists, Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, whose names...