-The Economic Times A panel headed by Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, has suggested all government payments above Rs 1,000 be gradually made or received electronically to cut graft, and bring about greater transparency and accountability.  The panel has also recommended creation of a network of 10 lakh interoperable micro-ATMs operated by business correspondents to allow people to access their accounts at their own convenience and said...

The alleged incident of two quarry workers in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district being forced to swallow faeces draws attention to larger issues. NORMALLY the villages and hamlets in and around Thiruvakkarai in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district are woken up by the loud noise and vibrations caused by the blasting of rocks and the pounding of boulders with sledge hammers, apart from the rattling sound of tipper lorries transporting stones from 40-odd...

Dr Abhijit Sen is Member, Planning Commission of India. He is a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge (currently on leave as Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University) and has also taught at the Universities of Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. Besides serving various think tanks in the states and at the centre, Dr Sen has been a consultant with UNDP, ILO, FAO and various other multilateral...

Five men arrested last week in Patiala on charges of planning a dacoity have confessed to carrying out at least four bombings targeted at Muslims in Haryana in 2009 and 2010, police in Haryana and Punjab said today. The men allegedly belong to a Hindu extremist group called Azad Sangathan, headed by a Jind resident called Azad, also known as Sagar and Kala. Azad was arrested along with his comrades Praveen...

-The Telegraph A local court today directed the special investigation team probing the Gujarat riots to submit a complete report on the Gulbarg society massacre within a month but restricted its access to only the original complainant. Metropolitan magistrate M.S. Bhatt said Zakia Jafri — whose husband, former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, was among 69 people killed on February 28, 2002,— would be given a certified copy, but not the other petitioners,...