-Economic and Political Weekly The Saradha group's collapse has possibly bankrupted lakhs of small investors robbing them of their life svaings, and has rendered thousands of its agents jobless. The scam highlights the failure of the government and its regulatory agencies to reign in the mushrooming chit fund companies in West Bengal. It also brings under the scanner the Trinamool Congress' proximity with the tainted group. In the wake of the...

-The Hindu   Assessment by high-level committee based on interactions with farmers Chennai: A Rs.1,755-crore package of drought relief measures was unveiled on Friday for non-Cauvery delta districts in the State. Of this package, six components were meant for about 17.9 lakh farmers, who had suffered over 50 per cent crop loss. The farmers, for a variety of crops, would receive a total compensation of Rs. 835.21 crore. Making an announcement in the Assembly, Chief...

-The Times of India The Supreme Court on Thursday lifted the omnibus ban on iron ore mines in Bellary, Chitradurga and Tumkur districts of Karnataka and permitted 81 lease owners, who had committed minor violations, to resume mining after compliance of stringent conditions laid down by the courts. Moving forward from its reference to illegal mining activity for decades under active political patronage as "a shocking state of depredation of nature's bounty...

-Live Mint Calls for govt action in case of Maharashtra should persuade even the staunchest supporters of benign govt intervention to do a rethink The drought situation in Maharashtra has attracted some amount of political attention, with the Union government announcing a Rs1,207 crore debt relief package in March. This is apart from relief measures announced by the state government. While experts have flayed the mismanagement of the situation by the...

-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...