-The Telegraph The shape and size of buses funded under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission are set to change soon. The urban development ministry is working on new “specifications” following several complaints about the design of these buses. The main problems relate to ventilation and cramped standing space. Another relates to the massive size of the low-floor buses, which work well for a city like Delhi with its wide roads but...

While the government wants India to tighten its belt, the Planning Commission can afford to, well, flush with cash.  On Wednesday, Commission chief Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that Rs 35 lakh spent on two toilets in his office was not public money down the drain.  Ahluwalia explained that these were not toilets, but "toilet complexes."  Each of these complexes can accommodate 10 people at a time. He did not specify whether taxpayers would...

-IANS The union cabinet Thursday discussed a fresh row between the home ministry and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and decided both will collect biometric data of 1.2 billion Indians, said sources.  The home ministry, headed by P. Chidambaram, and the UIDAI, headed by Nandan Nilekani, have been battling over the issue of collection of biometric data which entails the right to scan people's eyes and fingerprints.  In January, a cabinet...

-The Hindu   To provide water supply, drainage, solid waste management and street lighting  If a rural area boasts a high population — well above 5,000, sometimes as high as 20,000 — with most of its workforce in non-farm jobs, is it a village or a town? For almost 4,000 such areas, the definition is unclear: the census calls them towns, but since they have gram panchayats rather than municipal corporations, the government...

-The Hindustan Times People may say all sorts of things about the Planning Commission of India and its five-year plans and the catchy terminologies it comes up with (of course, with a little help from the government in power). But there is no getting away from the fact that the body knows how to plan well, at least when it comes to its own needs. According to a news report, the panel...