-The Economic Times While India frets about coal block allocations, massive policy failures have hit people where it hurts most: the stomach. While granaries are overflowing and sugar piling up, one would have expected the prices of sugar and flour to fall, or remain stable. Instead, since mid-July, wheat prices are up 20% across the country and flour prices have also shot up. For sugar, whose prices are up 12% from mid-July,...

-Yahoo With the government trying to gag everything that criticises its policies or actions, the day is not far when India too will be seen as 'illiberal'. Bizarre. Affectionate. Eccentric. These are some of the adjectives that have been used to describe India, but never has the word 'intolerant' become a prefix to our nation. However, with the government trying to gag everything that criticises its policies or actions, the day is...

-Outlook Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assets worth around Rs 10.73 crore, double that of last year, but a number of his cabinet colleagues are much richer than him. Among the richer cabinet ministers are Praful Patel with assets of approximately Rs 52 crore, Sharad Pawar with property worth around Rs 22 crore and M K Azagiri with Rs 9.50 crore, according to updated list of assets of the ministers posted on...

-India Together All the increased budgets for education in the country may not amount to much, if the States don't move the money fast enough to the intended uses, which is not happening now. Himanshu Upadhyaya reports.  The Comptroller and Auditor General's recent performance review of elementary education in Tripura has once again brought to our attention prolonged delays in release of funds meant for schools. The performance review, of accounts spanning...

-The Economic Times The Centre plans to make bank creditaccess easier for rural population, especially in states were poverty is high. In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, the gap between credit available to self help groups and the demand for credit is stark. At present, 80 per cent of all bank support to SHGs is in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. In Uttar Pradesh, Madhya...