-The Economic Times Almost every fortnight, Nandan Nilekani knocks on the doors of the Reserve Bank to push his case for making Aadhaar an easy gateway to a bank account. He has reached a frontier that, when crossed, could multiply the number of Indians, untouched by high-street banks, to have accounts. An inexpensive technology to execute this exists: the fingerprint of the person with a 12-digit individual identification number is all a...

-The Economic Times The government plans to revive cultivation of crops that make Punjab's iconic "makki ki roti and sarson ka saag" -- maize and mustard -- along with horticulture and fodder to breathe life into the stressed soil and the rapidly depleting water table in the green-revolution state. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is pushing hard for crop diversification in Punjab and has appointed an inter-ministerial panel on crop diversification led by Agriculture...

-The Hindu “The purpose of a Budget – and the job of a Finance Minister,” P. Chidambaram declared in his speech, “is to create the economic space and find the resources to achieve the socio economic objectives.” Now that the presentation of and the spate of initial responses to the budget are behind us, it may be appropriate to ask how far the Minister went in accomplishing his self-defined task. Mr. Chidambaram...

-Outlook The CPI(M) today castigated the government for foregoing over Rs 5.73 lakh crore as tax revenues by granting tax concessions to the rich, saying the amount was Rs 53,000 crore more than the fiscal deficit. "The budget proposals will further enrich the rich and impoverish the poor," senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters while reacting to the 2013-14 Budget. Quoting data presented in the budget, he said the aggregated revenue foregone...

-The Economic Times The agriculture ministry is seeking more budgetary support to increase farm sector growth rate to 4% per annum from 3.5% at present. "The allocation this year would be more as the country needs to produce more to provide food security to the nation," an agriculture ministry official said. "The scheme 'Bringing Green Revolution in Eastern India' has done well with increased funds of Rs 1,000 crore. We expect more...