-The Hindu Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram's estimate for India's 2014-15 food subsidy bill of Rs 1,15,000 crore in the interim budget is more than twice of India's Poverty Gap, or the cost of pushing all households above the poverty line if cash transfers were used instead. The Poverty Gap for India, as per the latest NSSO Consumption Expenditure Survey data available (for the year 2011-12) is Rs. 55,744 crore. A...

-Outlook Following are the highlights of interim budget 2014-15: Income tax rates kept unchanged 10 pc surcharge on 'super-rich' having annual income above Rs 1 crore to continue 10 pc surcharge on domestic corporates with income of Rs 10 crore Foodgrain production estimated at 263 million tonnes in 2013-14 Fiscal deficit at 4.6 pc in 2013-14...

-Outlook The number of poor in the country declined to 27 crore in 2011-12, from 40.74 crore in 2004-05, Minister of State for Planning and Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla said today. "The latest data of large sample survey on household Consumer Expenditure has been collected by NSSO in its 68th round conducted in 2011-12. "As per the estimates of Planning Commission, the number of persons living below the poverty line in the country...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday kept its promise of free water - 20 kilolitres per month or an average of about 660 litres a day per family - but it came with a rider and a whammy for bigger water consumers. The rider is that if consumption exceeds 20 kl, you would be billed for the entire water consumed, and the whammy was that...

-The Indian Express India faces no risk of violating its commitments under WTO The Indian delegation, led by commerce minister Anand Sharma, is approaching the WTO Ministerial in Bali with a ‘begging bowl'. The government has agreed to the so-called ‘peace clause'-a euphemism for not taking any penal action for violating commitments under Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)-proposed by WTO Director General but with the caveat that this will remain in place until...