-EPW The media noise shed little light on the important issues involved in deciding the coverage of welfare programmes. The context for the Planning Commission’s (PC) affidavit on the official poverty line was the deliberation in the Supreme Court on how many people could be covered by the public distribution system (PDS). But while the sound and fury over the poverty line – Rs 32 per capita per day in the urban...
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GoM on graft pushes for transparency
-The Times of India The government plans to bring forward legislation to implement key transparency measures in procurement, exploitation of natural resources and electoral reform in the winter session of Parliament. A meeting of the group of ministers (GoM) on corruption on Tuesday evening decided to move forward on anti-graft measures that it has been considering for some time now. The Vinod Dhall and Ashok Chawla committee recommendations on procurement and natural...
More »2G scam: Supreme Court slams Kapil Sibal on CAG audit remark
The Supreme Court on Friday slammed Communications Minister Kapil Sibal for his remark that the official auditor's report was "utterly erroneous" in assessing the loss on award of telecom spectrum at Rs.1.76 lakh crore ($40 billion). "It is unfortunate," said the apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice A.K. Ganguly. The court said the minister must be more responsible and directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to proceed with...
More »Sibal builds 2G maximum-welfare case
Telecom minister Kapil Sibal today termed “utterly erroneous, baseless and sensational” the government auditor’s estimate that the alleged 2G scam resulted in a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Sibal gave a detailed explanation of the priorities that drove the telecom policy and the benefits over the years to “the aam aadmi” — something his predecessor A. Raja did not or could not articulate till now. Drawing a parallel with free...
More »Food for Thought in India by Harsh Joshi
It is time for India's government to put its money where its mouth is. New Delhi has raised some $30 billion since March by selling state assets and telecom Airwaves. That is about as much as the country will attract in foreign direct investment this fiscal year. There is one area above all else where this money should be directed: food security. New Delhi talks a lot about guaranteeing food for India's...
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