Investigations say they have already mopped up a “massive amount” — running into “hundreds of crores” — as unpaid taxes from among the 700 numbered bank accounts held by Indians in HSBC Bank in Geneva in the ongoing scrutiny of what is considered a sprawling black money TRAIl. In fact, Rs 40 crore has been recovered from Delhi-based account holders and Rs 60 crore from just one account holder in Chennai...

In this Idea Exchange moderated by Senior Editor Archna Shukla, I&B minister Ambika Soni speaks about self-regulation by the media, empowering the Press Council of India and the Congress party’s stand on corruption Archna Shukla: There is a growing perception that the government is unhappy with media criticism. The editor of a leading English daily publicly claimed that government advertisements have been stopped to his publication. Is the government being vindictive? I have...

-The Hindu   In a historic first, a special court in Gujarat has convicted and awarded life sentences to as many as 31 mostly high caste, landed Patels for burning alive 33 Muslims — the majority of them women and children — of Sardarpura village in Mehsana district. The village was among numerous Muslim habitations targeted across the State by irate Hindu mobs as part of a pogrom ruthlessly executed in the...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The media does need to look at its nexus with business interests; injured innocence will not do. Recent remarks by the new chair of the Press Council of India, Justice (retired) M Katju, have sparked off some-thing of a debate in the media. Katju’s comments on the intellectual capabilities of journalists and his low opinion of their abilities have predictably led to indignant protestations by media bodies. But...

A persons's caste claim cannot be dismissed merely because his personal TRAIts do not match the peculiar anthropological and ethnological characteristics of a Scheduled Tribe that he claims to be part of, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday. Introducing a liberal interpretation for testing the genuineness of caste claims and benefits, a bench of Justices D K Jain and A K Ganguly said if a claimant has the right documents to...