-The Sunday Indian When I first heard about two journalists battling for life after returning from a reporting assignment in the Abujmarh jungles of Chattisgarh, from a journalist friend, I was left unmoved. In journalistic circles, while we haven't yet lost on our emotions, it's a proud feeling to see a fellow journalist excel at reportage from an inaccessible corner, especially when the reporter is still a cub in the field....
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Planning Commission toilets renovated at Rs 35 lakh
-PTI Planning Commission, which is mired in a controversy over what constitutes the poverty line, has spent a whopping Rs 35 lakh for renovation of two toilets in New Delhi, an RTI reply has revealed. The Commission, which came up with a controversial poverty line figure of Rs 28 per day for an individual, has spent Rs 30 lakh for the renovation of the toilets on the lines of Indira Gandhi International...
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-The Hindu Dr. Ahluwalia does not contradict a single fact in the article: (i) Rs.2.02 lakh daily average expenditure for trips between May and October 2011 (well after his “busy” G-20 period ending in 2010). No “gross extravagance”? (ii) 274 days abroad, or one in every nine. Factor in travel days and it could be one in seven away from office. (iii) 42 trips, half of them visits to the U.S. (several trips not...
More »'Foreign travel is expensive but necessary for the discharge of official duties'
-The Hindu Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, responds to P. Sainath: The article “The austerity of the affluent” (The Hindu, May 21, 2012), is so misleadingly distortive on two points that I feel compelled to clarify the position. I have high regard for your newspaper, and subscribe to the notion that there should be full transparency in government. It is in this spirit that I hope these clarifications...
More »The austerity of the affluent-P Sainath
A rural Indian spending Rs. 22.50 a day would not be considered poor by a Planning Commission whose Deputy Chairman's foreign trips between May and October last year cost a daily average of Rs. 2.02 lakh Pranab Mukherjee's stirring call for austerity tugs at the national tear ducts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pleaded for it in the past and watched his flock embrace it creatively. With the Finance Ministry even...
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