-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Is corruption really an issue in elections? Some surveys claim that people worry more about the economy than corruption. Poll data for 2004 and 2009 general elections show that not only do political parties continue to repeatedly field candidates facing corruption charges, people even vote for them. Analysis of affidavits filed by Lok Sabha candidates shows that in 2004 general elections, a total of 12 candidates...

-Mumbai Mirror Instead of selling highly subsidised rice and wheat, we need to get food into hungry stomachs. The level of development of a country can be measured in many different ways. You could use average income of every person (i.e. GDP divided by population), or you can use average spending. You can count the number of millionaires or billionaires. You can count number of mobile connections, or cars on the road....

-The Hindu Restricting the price subsidy to coarse grains alone will not only work better from both fiscal and equity points of view but also weaken the incentives for graft The National Food Security Act (NFSA), passed recently by Parliament, offers 5 kg per person a month of cereals at highly subsidised prices to more than the bottom two-thirds of the population. It has been rightly hailed as the largest welfare programme...

-The Business Standard Government slowness may have scuttled Aadhaar With the declaration that the chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani, will stand as a Congress candidate in the coming Lok Sabha elections from a constituency in Bangalore, attention has once again been focused on the Aadhaar project. Aadhaar is almost at its target of enrolling 600 million people nationwide; Mr Nilekani says that the UIDAI has now got...

-The Indian Express Govt officials, opposition question Mamata doles to Muslims Kolkata: Communal clashes have jumped in rural Bengal, police records show. Such incidents, annually between 12 and 40 for five years until 2012, peaked at 106 last year. Government officials fear that in an election year, the growing conflict could lead to polarisation of the electorate. West Bengal has always been considered a peaceful state in terms of communal amity. But the...