-The Hindu In 2009-10, 33% of PDS off-take of kerosene diverted for non-household use: report The findings of a confidential report, commissioned by the government and accessed exclusively by The Hindu, have revealed that allocated expenditures of social spending programmes are not reaching intended users and confirm leakages due to corruption. The capitation fees collected by private colleges, on management quota seats in professional courses, last year was around Rs 5,953 crore, the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India's domestic compulsions and the danger of breaching the subsidy cap for wheat and rice forced the government to thwart attempts by other World Trade Organization members to push through a new set of customs rules without addressing its concerns. The subsidy data, due to be released by the government over the next few weeks, will reveal that the subsidy on rice was over 9% of...

-The Deccan Herald The poverty line continues to be a conundrum. The fixing of the poverty line at Rs 47 for urban areas and Rs. 32 in rural areas per capita per day by the latest Rangarajan committee report, based on a person or family's spending per day (called ‘consumption expenditure') has again drawn vociferous criticism. All these years, this all important line has not been fixed in a rational manner, rendering...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...

-PSainath.org At least ten farmers have killed themselves every day, on average, for a straight ten years in the rich state of Maharashtra. Nation-wide the farm suicides total nears the 300,000-mark, as the data of the National Crime Records Bureau show. At least 3,146 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2013, the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show. That brings the total number of farmers taking their own...