-The Times of India In a concerted strategy to hit at PM Manmohan Singh, just days after it leveled charges of corruption against top Cabinet ministers, Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan said the PM was like 'Shikhandi' and was being used by Congress as a shield. Bhushan on Monday slammed Singh for defending the UPA government on corruption charges. "The Congress is using the PM as a shield like 'Shikhandi'. They say...

In an order that could have far-reaching implications, the Odisha State Information Commission has directed the state government to furnish information on top government officials facing corruption charges. The state transparency watchdog’s order last month came on a Hindustan Times petition. The government, which was told to make the information public as a part of self-disclosure under the Right to Information Act within a month (by the last week of May),...

In a Bangladeshi folk story, a disabled grandfather is carried by his son in a basket, to be abandoned in the forest. On seeing this, the grandson calls out, 'Father, please be sure to bring back the basket. I will need it when you grow old'. Three thousand ageing men and women gathered in Delhi in the blazing midsummer heat to demand a universal pension for all aged people, not...

-The Times of India The government's white paper on black money, tabled in Parliament on Monday, listed a one-time tax amnesty to recover funds stashed abroad and a gold deposit scheme for locals as possible ways to deal with the menace, while suggesting that individuals get the tax department's go-ahead for all property deals and face undue scrutiny on cash in their possession. It also called for setting up of independent regulators,...

The government may make mandatory the disclosure of high-value purchases such as property and jewellery. Stung by growing public outrage over corruption, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will on Monday spell out steps taken and planned to curb proliferation of black money. There are no clear estimates of the size of India’s black economy but the amount is pegged between $462 billion (Rs.22 lakh crore) and $1.4 trillion (Rs.77 lakh crore). Mukherjee...