-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has made the National Pension System (NPS) more attractive for investors, with the biggest bonanza going to 18 lakh central government employees. The Centre will contribute 14% of basic salary to their pension corpus, up from 10%. The employee’s contribution will remain at 10%, bringing the total contribution to 24%. Announcing the changes on Monday, finance minister Arun Jaitley said the entire withdrawal at...

-The Hindu Business Line The sharp cut in back-series growth rates for some years in methodologically unsound. It suggests political interference The recent release of the back series of national income has raised a series of controversial reactions. It is understandable for, the gross domestic product (GDP) numbers and the resulting growth estimates provide analytically useful, more powerful than commonly understood, perspectives encompassing not only economic but also social and political spheres. To...

-The Hindu The Electoral Bond Scheme inhibits the citizen’s capacity to meaningfully participate in political and public life Early this year the government introduced an Electoral Bond Scheme purportedly with a view to cleansing the prevailing culture of political sponsorship. But the programme’s failings have been so blindingly obvious, and its consequences so utterly devastating to rectitude and transparency in government, that even O.P. Rawat, who just retired Chief Election Commissioner, thought...

-The Indian Express Then Chief Statistician T C A Anant confirmed that the release of data was withheld. “Niti Aayog had issues with a particular proxy we used for corporate sector growth estimates,” Anant told The Indian Express. In what adds a fresh twist to the controversy over the downward revision of UPA growth data, it is now learnt that almost three years ago, the Central Statistics Office (CSO), in the...

-The Times of India Blog Prakash Singh, former IPS officer who also headed the Border Security Force, dealt with naxalism in its early stages. He continues to research the movement. In a conversation with Sugandha Indulkar, he shares his idea of urban naxalism. * What is urban naxalism? Urban naxalism, in simplest terms, implies naxalism as practised in urban areas by different shades of intellectuals – lawyers, journalists, writers, doctors, professors or people...