-The Asian Age Sonia Gandhi’s economic and political ideology may have apparently triumphed over that of Manmohan Singh. The neo-liberal finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram may be conveying an impression that he’s turned socialist with a vengeance by increasing taxes on the rich in the run-up to the 16th general elections. But the truth is that Mr Chidambaram has made certain assumptions about subsidies, inflation and the expected growth of gross domestic product...

-The Business Standard FM allocates Rs 10,000 cr to implement the programme; this is apart from the usual food subsidy requirement of Rs 80,000 cr for the year The most ambitious social security programme of the government, the National Food Security Bill, got a leg-up in the 2013-14 Budget, with Finance Minister P Chidambaram allocating Rs 10,000 crore for implementing it. This allocation is over and above the usual food subsidy requirement of...

-The Times of India Amid the debate on a super-rich tax, the pre-Budget Economic Survey on Wednesday argued against raising tax rates significantly; instead, it said that the focus should be on people who have a taxable income but don't pay any income tax. "It is much better to achieve a higher tax-GDP ratio by broadening the base which is taxed rather than increasing marginal tax rates significantly — higher and higher...

-The Indian Express Gandhinagar: The Gujarat government on Tuesday tabled an irrigation Bill in the Assembly which seeks to make it compulsory for farmers to get a licence to draw water from canal or ground well beyond a certain limit and prescribes penal action, including imprisonment, against the errant farmers. The Bill also seeks to charge farmers for irrigation water reaching any cultivated land within 200 metres of a canal either by...

-The Telegraph Narendra Modi will be “Romancing Print” on March 2 but some printers, unwilling to be wooed by the Gujarat Chief Minister, have dropped out of a conference where he will be chief guest. “The print and publishing industry cannot play Goebbels to Modi,” Indu Chandrasekhar, the founder of Tulika Books, wrote to the organisers of the conference in Delhi being held to exchange ideas on digital printing, motivating the self,...