As minister of statistics and programme implementation, Sriprakash Jaiswal should have the data to quantify how much money can buy. On Tuesday, making yet another pitch for increasing the annual local area fund for MPs, he said: “With prices soaring, Rs 5 crore — what we are seeking — would (be) equivalent to the Rs 2 crore given ten years ago.” His ire was directed at the Planning Commission for...

Most central ministers have signed at the end of last year a performance-tracking document, the sweeping nature of which has started to sink in only now. Although the ministers say they have no quarrel with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s objective of improving governance, some resent that their performance will now be assessed by a set of bureaucrats. “We are now at the mercy of some babus in the cabinet secretariat who have...

This is what a prescription confiscated recently in a Madhya Pradesh primary healthcare centre read — "Above prescribed medicines are available in the medical store situated just outside the hospital." In a blatant example of the doctor-pharmaceutical company nexus that is not only plaguing Indian cities but also the country's most backward villages, the latest review of the National Rural Health Mission has found that the prescription pad was a...

Continuing with its campaign against “paid news,” the Editors Guild of India has asked the Election Commission (EC) to take strong action against politicians and mediapersons who violate the disclosure norms of election expenditure with regard to media publicity. Members of the Guild met Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Navin Chawla and his colleagues on Friday and submitted a memorandum articulating the demand while expressing concern over the “paid news phenomenon.” They...

The Planning Commission, the country’s apex planning body, is gradually reconciling to the fact that there would be no large gains in the gross budgetary support (GBS) in budget 2010-11, as the government struggles to reduce fiscal deficit. GBS is the money the Union government allocates to various government programmes through the Union budget. “The major objective of the finance ministry is to bring down the fiscal deficit from 6.8% of...