-NDTV New Delhi: The government has moved to block political parties from being covered by the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Amendments have been moved to the Act to exempt parties from being obliged to share details of their funding or how they choose their candidates. These amendments are likely to be scrutinized at a cabinet meeting on Thursday. In June, the Central Information Commission or CIC, which ensures the RTI Act is...
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Facing flak, govt to revise poverty line benchmark
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government will soon revise the contentious poverty line upward from Rs 27.20 in rural areas and Rs 33.40 in urban areas after it receives the report of the Rangarajan committee that is examining the validity of the current yardstick. Minister of state for planning Rajeev Shukla told TOI the government was in the process of re-evaluating the poverty line in a bid to make it...
More »Forests of the night -Christophe Jaffrelot
-The Indian Express How Chhattisgarh became a sanctuary, and then a laboratory, for Naxals Some time ago, Chhattisgarh hit the headlines because of a Maoist attack on state Congress leaders, in which V.C. Shukla and Mahendra Karma died. Since then, the Congress has accused the BJP government of a conspiracy, and some BJP leaders have accused former chief minister Ajit Jogi of being part of a conspiracy himself. Politicising this tragic episode...
More »Under attack, Congress says poverty line 'unrealistic'
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Facing allegations of trivializing poverty for tom-tomming Planning Commission figures that show a decline in the number of poor, the Congress changed its tune on Saturday to dub the poverty line as "unrealistic". The all-round assault on Congress seems to have resulted in the course correction that reflected in the disapprovals issued by Digvijaya Singh, Kapil Sibal and Rajiv Shukla. Union minister Kapil Sibal and AICC general...
More »Punjab’s new agro policy will be a drain on hope -Chander Suta Dogra
-The Hindu Groundwater meets three quarters of the State's farming needs The Punjab State Farmers Commission recently published a draft new agriculture policy for the State that envisages substantial crop diversification from paddy and wheat staples that the State has been growing since the sixties. The draft policy, currently being debated in agriculture circles, is the first serious road map to steer Punjab's agriculture towards a new dynamic, necessitated by a sharp...
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