Finance ministry asks automobile sector to submit a report on the impact of such a move within a week’s time The government appears to have made up its mind to increase excise duty on diesel cars to neutralize the advantage of the state subsidy that has prompted motorists to increasingly favour vehicles powered by the fuel that’s Rs.30 a litre cheaper at the pump than petrol. Indications that the government is leaning...

Citizens across 483 cities paid as much as Rs 44.77 crore in bribes, to get their land documents, electricity connections, a seat in a preferred college or register their dream home. And all this in just 21 months. Ipaidabribe, the only online forum for citizens to air their grievances when they grease palms, clocked 1 million hits as on May 31, 2012. Needless to say, it is the registration department...

The Yojana Bhavan toilets are causing a stink of a different kind. The Planning Commission, which estimated a poverty line figure of Rs 28 per day per person, lavished Rs 35 lakh on refurbishing two toilets in its headquarters. For good measure, the commission has admitted in an RTI response, it has spent Rs 5.19 lakh in installing an access control system in the toilets. The facility, installed while the toilets...

-The Indian Express Jairam Ramesh’s criticism of NREGA highlights that a rights-based approach to poverty reduction cannot work without improving implementation The clamour for the right to social pensions is another attempt to deal with the Indian state’s inability to provide adequate social protection to its poorest citizens through targeted programmes. India’s vulnerable continue to be excluded from social safety nets. The multi-layered problems with social welfare schemes can be summarised in...

When it comes to thrusting nuclear power down the throats of unwilling people, official India sets a record of violations of dignity and rights that is embarrassing. Which other government but India's maligns all anti-nuclear protesters as foreign-inspired and lacking any agency? Where else would the police file 107 FIRs against 55,795 peaceful anti-nuclear protesters, but at Koodankulam, charging 6,800 with "sedition" and "waging war against the State"? And which...