-The Times of India Government agencies fear that terror funds are flowing into the real estate sector, apart from a substantial part of the black money generated within the country finding its way into the housing industry. An assessment prepared by revenue intelligence agencies and reviewed by the finance minister recently reveals that the highest component of undisclosed money detected by the income tax department was from the real estate sector. Officials suspect...

-PTI  Back to targeting Congress, Anna Hazare and his close aide Arvind Kejriwal today asked the party to come out clean on its election funding and the money it spent on "helicopters and rallies".  Asking Congress to make public its expenses on its website, Kejriwal said senior party leader Digvijay Singh had repeatedly asked Team Anna to make public the money they collected and then spent on the Lokpal protest.  "We gave all...

-The Business Standard Govt should not explore unworkable solutions The petroleum ministry’s “single kitchen” concept for new consumers of liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, is a classic case of using a flawed solution to compensate for policy distortions in the pricing of petroleum products. The norm of allowing one LPG connection per household with one kitchen may look good on paper but it is hardly a foolproof mechanism to curb the misuse...

India looks to reduce out-of-pocket expenditure on health in 12th Plan Ahead of the 12th Five Year Plan, which aims to focus on health, the Union ministry of health and family welfare called a one-day national consultation to deliberate social determinants of health. The outcome would influence health policies for the next Plan period, beginning April. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), social determinants like poor economic status, lower social status,...

MGNREGA 2.0 should really be MGNREGA 0.0 — it has been outdated from the start, five years ago It is a fact universally acknowledged that India is at a fiscal crossroads. It swerved quite significantly to populism over the last several years, and the consequences of this lurch are that the UPA’s own finance minister is (thankfully) losing sleep over the fiscal burden. More specifically, over the subsidy burden. As we all...