In a startling affidavit before the Supreme Court, the Planning Commission has said an individual income of just Rs. 25 a day constitutes adequate “private expenditure on food, education and health.” The affidavit, submitted on Tuesday, bases its assertion on the findings of the Suresh Tendulkar Committee, which pegged the poverty line at Rs. 447 a month, or about Rs. 15 a day, at 2004-2005 prices. Experts reacted with dismay to the...

This wedding season, anxious grooms from Parsa and Ghatburra, two villages in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district, were offered financial assistance from an unlikely source. Adani Mining Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, was handing out loans to all those who could prove that the money would be spent on marriage arrangements. “A company official took us to the bank, opened accounts in our names, and gave us cheques for Rs....

Opening a new chapter of charges against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, this time for attempting to subvert the judicial process, the noted danseuse and social activist Mallika Sarabhai claimed that the Chief Minister had “bribed” her lawyers to derail her Public Interest Litigation petition before the Supreme Court on the 2002 communal riots in the State. Ms. Sarabhai told a hurriedly convened media conference on Sunday that an affidavit filed...

A band of tribal women from rebel-hit Jehan village, 125km from the state capital, are keeping their men off liquor since the past one-and-half years. An unlikely crusader leads rural homemakers, numbering about 60, under the self-named outfit Nehru Mahila Samiti. She’s a 29-year-old primary schoolteacher, Basanti Tirkey, a Ranchi’s Nirmala College alumnus from the batch of 2004. The mother of a three-year-old son, her husband Antonis Lakra works in the...

Seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act is all set to get easier. Adding a “smart” layer to the process of applying for information, the Karnataka Government has decided to set up a business process outsourcing centre to handle all applications, enquiries, and even billing. Streamlining the entire process through a website and a call centre, this project, which is pending Cabinet approval, will simplify the current application process...