The rural development ministry has proposed several changes in the rural job guarantee programme to ensure timely payment of wages and eradicate graft at a time when the Congress party-led ruling alliance has come under fire for poor governance and its failure to tackle corruption. The ministry has listed nine challenges to the proper functioning of the programme and proposed possible modifications in a note. The challenges include ensuring demand-driven legal...

Country's top carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, plunged into another crisis as production at its Manesar plant was abruptly stopped for the second time in past two months after its sacked around twodozen workers. The assembly lines for Maruti's top selling cars such as the new Swift, AStar hatchbacks and Sx4 sedan came to a grinding halt after it terminated services of 11 workers and also suspended another 10, on charges of indiscipline...

India should facilitate private sector growth in higher education, particularly in technical subjects, and should explore and develop innovative public-private partnerships (PPP) in the 12th Five-year Plan In a potential game-changer for India’s education sector, the Planning Commission has suggested that the country allow establishing institutes of higher learning that could be run for profit. “The not-for-profit tag in higher education sector should perhaps be re-examined in a more pragmatic manner so...

India Inc too wants an honest day’s work On August 22, a public holiday across north India, Sunil Sirohi, a middle-aged IT Executive, joined Ramlila Maidan’s anti-corruption agitators with wife Jyoti and a pre-teen son. “It’s the first such movement we’ve been part of,” he says. One of the attractions was bringing young Siddhartha up-to-date on Anna Hazare, the self-styled Gandhian from Maharashtra who has become the public face of...

-The Indian Express   Anna Hazare was supposed to break his fast at 10 am on Sunday, but in the event he — and everyone else — was kept waiting while a member of his “team” made an interminable “mission accomplished” speech. When it is something as hydra-headed and intangible as corruption, however, it is difficult to imagine how victory could be defined — and more, since the reduction of corruption is...