Sharad Pawar says many states had asked him not to ban the pesticide Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is rooting for endosulfan just before the fifth Conference of Parties (COP) of the Stockholm Convention meets in Geneva from April 25 to April 30 to decide the fate of the pesticide. There seems to be a pattern in Pawar’s resistance to banning endosulfan. Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha on February...

Planning Commission on Wednesday claimed the UPA Government’s inclusive agenda had uplifted around 7 crore from below poverty line (BPL) during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2007-12). The initial findings suggest that absolute poverty in the country may have come down by five percentage points during the 11th Plan. Satisfied with the figures, deputy chairman of Plan panel Montek Singh Ahluwalia said the government’s policy for inclusive growth is paying off. He...

The huge support for what Anna Hazare espoused came against the background of widespread corruption and government inaction. THE Anna Hazare mania that gripped large sections of society for five days from April 5, resulting in the government capitulating to his demand for including civil society activists in the committee for the drafting of an anti-corruption law, has baffled many people. The groundswell of support for his cause took the...

Expectations of changes resulting from a movement bereft of a clear political and ideological thrust would be far-fetched. FROM the vacuum left by mainstream politics to the confusions of ideology and practice emerging out of half-baked socio-political engagement – the political trajectory of Anna Hazare's “anti-corruption” satyagraha movement demanding early introduction of the Lokpal Bill in Parliament can well be summed up thus. The wide support that the movement received from...

UPA wants JPC to do the job BJP feels it has a better chance of indicting the government Congress men realise that a JPC report will be more to their advantage After a three-hour-long discussion here on Thursday, the Public Accounts Committee remained a divided house on the question whether it should finalise its findings in a report on the 2G spectrum allocation or leave the entire issue to the Joint Parliamentary Committee...