-The Economic Times The government has removed roadblocks to coal mining by leading business houses and taken the first step to relax scrutiny of corporate expenditure on oil and gas fields, in a burst of action that has cheered investors and industrialists in the languishing energy sector. A group of ministers recommended to the cabinet on Wednesday that Reliance Power's Chhatrasal block, which is attached to the 4,000 mw Sasan Ultra Mega...

-The Business Standard Are subsidised exports the only solution? Surely the intellect of a high-level inter-ministerial committee is not required to conclude that the subsidised export of wheat and the disposal of grain at discounted rates at home can help ease the current grain congestion. However, this seems indeed to be the conclusion reached by the high-level panel set up by the prime minister under the chairmanship of his Chief Economic...

After the public outcry over the controversial Rs 28 a day poverty formulation, the Planning Commission has put the poverty debate in a deep freeze with the government setting up yet another expert group to take a relook at the existing methodology to determine the number of poor in the country. The decision, taken under public pressure, can be interpreted as rejection of the Tendulkar Committee report based on which the...

The Planning Commission has distanced itself from the government's decision to appoint a committee to reconsider the way poverty numbers are estimated, indicating a deep divide between the political masters and the technocrats at institution charged with laying down development agenda for the country. On Thursday, Minister for Planning Ashwini Kumar announced a committee under C Rangarajan, chairman of prime minister's economic advisory council, to review the widely criticised poverty estimates released...

Amid protests over India's steepest-ever petrol price hike last week, many are now beginning to ask the question: Is the government milking the common man to keep its oil companies profitable? Consider these: Each time, you fill your car with a litre of petrol in Delhi, the Centre gets richer by Rs. 14.78 and state government earns another Rs. 12.20. In 2010-11 ( the latest figures available), the Centre and state governments...