Concerned at flak, Manmohan asks him to call press meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday to hold a detailed press conference “at the earliest” to clarify the government's position on the black money issue and what it was doing to deal with the menace. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sought clarity from the government on how it intended to end black money, and wanted to know...

The Centre has signed deals or is in talks with 78 countries besides Switzerland to amend double taxation avoidance treaties to facilitate information-sharing on slush funds held by Indians abroad. These countries include Mauritius, Brazil, Canada, Italy, the UK, the US, the UAE and the Channel Islands. The Swiss parliament is set to ratify the tax treaty with changes which will allow India to gain access to information on black money held...

A generally beleaguered microfinance industry was eagerly waiting for Yezdi Malegam for deliverance. Any conversation about the microfinance business would end with the expectation that the Malegam committee would deliver a healthy dose of oxygen to the choking microfinance industry. The report was expected to be the panacea for all that ails microfinance in India. The report, which came out on Monday, disappoints not only in its inability to meet these...

Describing black money stashed away abroad by Indians as “pure and simple theft of national money”, the Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Centre's approach to tackling this menace and retrieving the huge amount kept in foreign Banks. “Mind-boggling crime” When Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam furnished in a sealed cover a list of 26 names who had accounts with Liechtenstein Bank, a Bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar was...

Students at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore raised questions on the huge cost of the newly-launched unique identification project, the security of the system and what was being done to prevent its possible misuse, but they got no clear answer In the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) that I graduated from way back in 1983, dialogue and debate were the essence of true talent. Those who were revered most...