-The Telegraph Kolkata: Arrested Saradha Group chief Sudipta Sen, the architect of the default crisis in Bengal, has said he had approached several CPM leaders over his business, police said. Sen, who was brought to Calcutta late last night and kept in police custody before his court production this afternoon, has told the police he had met a CPM state committee member in 2008 over a possible investment in a news channel...

-The Hindu   Now it is mandatory for IAS and IPS officials posted in Chhattisgarh to learn at least one local tribal language The Communist Part of India (Maoist) had made local tribal language learning mandatory for its cadres in Chhattisgarh (erstwhile Madhya Pradesh) soon after they arrived from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in the early Eighties. Hence, in the next decade, all its Bengali, Telugu or Marathi speaking cadres picked up at least...

-Live Mint Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's first panchyati raj minister, talks about the challenges the institutions face On Wednesday, India marked 20 years of panchayati raj, an exercise in devolving power to people at the grassroots. Rajya Sabha memberMani Shankar Aiyar was India's first panchyati raj minister, appointed to the newly created ministry in 2004. He headed a committee that examined the reasons why attempts at sharing power with self-governance units haven't...

-The Indian Express Kolkata: As the investigation into the Saradha chit fund scam threatens to reach the doorstep of the Trinamool Congress, the markets watchdog is learnt to have warned of a larger, more frightening scenario: similar Ponzi schemes run by at least five other companies in West Bengal, involving over Rs 4,000 crore of small investors' money. In its latest communication sent to the state government, the Securities and Exchange Board...

-The Hindu     Imprecise estimates of slums in the 2011 census could affect welfare programmes for least privileged groups The recently published census 2011 report on housing stock, amenities and assets in slums, the first of its kind in the country, reassuringly announced that the number of urban slums has declined and the percentage of households in slums has dropped from 23.5 (2001) to 17.4. On the face of it, this reduction appears...