-The Times of India Two months after questioning the rationale behind commuting death sentences of five rape-murder convicts to life imprisonment during then President Pratibha Patil's tenure, a Parliamentary committee has now suggested that the Mercy petitions should not be by and large considered for such criminals. Though the Committee is not in favour of completely knocking out the provision of Mercy plea for convicts like those on death row, it wants...
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Slash subsidy, raise prices of diesel and LPG: Economic Survey
-PTI Claiming that the "downturn is more or less over", the pre-Budget Economic Survey on Wednesday projected an optimistic 6.1 to 6.7 per cent growth in the next fiscal and made a strong call for cutting subsidises. While pegging the GDP growth at an estimated 5 per cent for the current fiscal, the Survey tabled in Parliament by finance minister P Chidambaram said "...the overall economy is expected to grow in the...
More »LPG subsidy reaching the poor is less
-The Hindu The Economic Survey has said that the proportion of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) subsidies that goes to the poor, in both rural and urban areas, was low. This finding is bound to provide fuel to the debate on whether the rich should continue to be supplied cooking gas at subsidised rate. Making a case for containing subsidies through better targeting, the Survey said the reach of subsidies on LPG “is...
More »Economic Survey 2013: Indian agriculture largely a success story
-The Economic Times It is consoling that despite a deficit of 8% in south-west rainfall during 2012-13 compared to its long period average (LPA), agriculture's contribution to GDP growth is likely to be around 1.8%. It is also good news that the revised figure of agri-GDP for the 11th Plan as a whole is 3.6%, up from 3.3% estimated earlier. Gross capital formation in agriculture as a percentage of agri-GDP has almost...
More »After 6 months in jail as 'terror suspect', a journalist returns-Johnson TA
-The Indian Express Bangalore: About six months ago, when he appeared in court for the first time after being named by the Bangalore Police in an alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba plot to target local right-wing media personalities, Muthi ur Rehman Siddiqui, 26, a reporter and sub-editor with the Deccan Herald newspaper here, still had the glint of youthful exuberance in his eyes. But now, the first thing that comes to mind on seeing Siddiqui...
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