-The Indian Express The Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the National Food Security Bill is considering to recommend to the government to do away with the categorisation of “general” and “priority” (similar to the below poverty line) households in the legislation and provide uniform food guarantee to 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of the urban population. Keeping in mind the fiscal implications, the committee is likely to...

-The Hindu Subsidies on cooking gas, kerosene and diesel have resulted in perverse outcomes not envisaged when they were introduced With the Aadhaar-based direct cash transfer scheme facing so many glitches in implementation, any hopes that the country’s energy sector can soon dismount the subsidy tiger it has been riding so dangerously have receded into the background. Had the Aadhaar scheme worked satisfactorily, the next logical step would have been to extend...

-The Business Standard A decision has been taken to gradually initiate Aadhaar and non-Aadhaar based LPG subsidy transfer through the OMCs  Having capped subsidised LPG cylinder to six, the government plans to move to a single price for domestic LPG by directly transferring subsidy to consumers with or without Aadhaar number. A committee of officials from ministries of petroleum, banking, expenditure, finance and UIDAI will prepare a white paper on the modalities...

If the government accepts oil minister S Jaipal Reddy's proposal, the price of small diesel cars could soon rise by Rs 1.7 lakh while medium-to-large guzzlers could become costlier by Rs 2.55 lakh a piece. The proposal to impose additional excise duty on diesel cars is bound to trigger protests from automakers, who have seen sales growing at the slowest pace in seven months in May. Domestic car sales declined 24%...

A day after the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) said finance minister Pranab Mukherjee was considering an increase in excise duty on diesel cars, a consensus seems to be building within the government, with the oil ministry supporting the move. Following this, key stakeholders involved in taking a decision on increasing excise duty on diesel vehicles are likely to meet on Wednesday, according to three people, including a top...