-NDTV A letter written by BJP president Nitin Gadkari lobbying for contractors building a mega-dam project in Maharashtra has the Congress demanding his resignation, and the BJP on the defensive. Written on July 30 to Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, Mr Gadkari asks for Rs. 400 crores to be released to the contractors hired for the Gosikhurd dam in Vidarbha. The main contractor is Ajay Sancheti, a BJP member of the...
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Flunking Atomic Audits-MV Ramana
-Economic and Political Weekly The recent Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and, more broadly, on nuclear safety regulation has highlighted many serious organisational and operational flaws. The report follows on a series of earlier CAG reports that documented cost and time overruns and poor performance at a number of nuclear facilities in the country. On the whole, the CAG reports offer a powerful indictment of...
More »Kelkar panel for scrapping all subsidy; says no action will push FY13 fiscal deficit to 6.1%
-NDTV The Kelkar committee has said subsidies pose the greatest risk to the country's fiscal situation, while suggesting that the excise and service tax rates should be cut to 8% over the next few years. The panel calls for the need to step up disinvestment drive in state-run firms for fiscal consolidation. It says diesel should be deregulated by 2014 and all subsidy on cooking gas be cut by 2015. All subsidies must be...
More »Agriculture back in focus as growth estimate gets downgraded by banks like Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered-Gayatri Nayak
-The Economic Times When the country was growing at more than 8 per cent for about a decade, services and manufacturing were the darlings of policy-makers, investors and talking heads. Agriculture, a segment that employs nearly half the hundred crore population of the country, was hardly mentioned even in passing. This year, thanks to a poor monsoon, suddenly the farmers are the centre of India's growth story, or the lack of...
More »Funding at a snail's pace-Himanshu Upadhyaya
-India Together All the increased budgets for education in the country may not amount to much, if the States don't move the money fast enough to the intended uses, which is not happening now. Himanshu Upadhyaya reports. The Comptroller and Auditor General's recent performance review of elementary education in Tripura has once again brought to our attention prolonged delays in release of funds meant for schools. The performance review, of accounts spanning...
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