Unlike the dearness allowance that accrues to the salaries of workers every six months without any hassle, the linking of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) wages to inflation or the Consumer Price Index for agricultural wages has not led to a smooth annual revision. The revision for NREGA wages is supposed to happen every January after it was introduced last January. However, even a month into the new year, the...

-The Telegraph A senior IAS officer was arrested today for alleged involvement in the Emaar MGF scandal dating back to Y.S.R. Reddy’s tenure as Andhra chief minister. B.P. Acharya, now principal secretary in the home department, is the second senior IAS officer based in the state to be held on corruption charges in recent months. Y. Srilakshmi was held in an illegal mining case involving former Karnataka minister G. Janardhana Reddy. Acharya was managing...

-ANI Defending the decision to provide minority (Muslim) reservation, Law Minister, Salman Khurshid on Sunday said that the Central Government had powers to grant quota to backwards castes of minority communities within the Hindu backward caste quota. The Election Commission has stayed the government decision to grant 4.5 percent reservation to minorities (Muslims) in government jobs and educational institutions due to ongoing state polls. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has opposed the move, contending...

School girls in bright red uniforms troop down the slope in groups of threes and fours in Koppa, the fertile sugarcane town in southern Karnataka’s agricultural district of Mandya. A teenage boy on a motorcycle does the dim-and-dip with his headlights, the equivalent of a wink, as he passes the girls on his way up the slope in what seems to be a strut on a motorcycle. “Television and mobile phones...

-The Deccan Herald The State government on Saturday said there will not be any delay in replying to RTI applications. In reply to a report in the Deccan Herald titled ‘Waiting for RTI replies just got longer’, which appeared on Saturday, the press secretary to the Chief Minister said the new rule of approaching the First Appellate Authority (FAA) and waiting for 45 days is meant only to prevent the influx of...