-The Indian Express The Samajwadi Party’s sweep in India’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, and Congress’s defeat in Punjab and Goa will further shrink the elbow room the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre has to push through key initiatives such as foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, pension reforms and legislation such as the goods and service tax (GST) that require support from states. The Centre had postponed some of these...

The EC strikes out at paid news, but what it has seen is just the tip of the iceberg It’s getting bigger by the day. If the sheer number of notices sent by the Election Commission to candidates and media houses is any indication, paid news is big news in the assembly elections in Punjab. By the time polling came to a close on January 30, the commission’s media monitoring committees...

Before filing papers, prospective candidates enter into a tacit deal with media, says EC   Even as it is tightening the noose around the media-candidates' nexus to thwart “paid news” instances through its district media committees and expenditure observers, the Election Commission has come to know about new strategies worked out by them to break the rules. “We have received reports that such ‘paid news' transactions had taken place in some instances in...

Not allowing the dust to settle on the mismanagement of the Centre's flagship employment guarantee scheme in Uttar Pradesh, Sanjay Dixit, member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council, on Sunday, alleged UP has violated the norms of the scheme. In a letter to Union minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh, Dixit has drawn attention to an MIS report generated by UP, which indicates details of expenditure on works where there...

The country's main planning body will overhaul of the system of village panchayat in the next Five-Year Plan period to improve its functioning and check siphoning of funds meant for social sector programmes.  Over 250,000 panchayats or village councils in the country collectively handle about Rs 90,000 crore in social sector funds every year, but embezzlement by village representatives often prevents the benefits of welfare schemes from reaching the needy.  To remedy...