-The Indian Express Mindful of the fiscal challenge the national food security law is likely to bring, the government proposes to give itself the option of raising the price of foodgrains three years after the law is rolled out. To ensure that the UPA’s showpiece welfare legislation is not grounded because of opposition from the states, the food ministry is set to drop the provision for setting up a National Food Commission...

-The Business Standard Expresses government's resolve to attract Rs 5 lakh crore investments in 5 years Maharashtra government on Monday downplayed the ongoing controversy over the multi crore irrigation scam. Instead, the state Governor K Sankaranarayanan in his address to the joint session of the Maharashtra Legislature said during the drought year, importance of creation of new irrigation potential is quite obvious. In 2011-12, an irrigation potential of 1.08 lakh hectare was...

-The Business Standard Budget underestimates food, fertiliser subsidies If the projections in the 2013-14 Budget are to be believed, subsidies on food and fertiliser which, along with petroleum subsidy, account for nearly 95 per cent of total subsidies are unlikely to rise much in the next financial year. This prognosis, reflected in an increase of just Rs 5,000 crore in food subsidy allocation and no change in the fertiliser subsidy, is odd;...

-The Economic Times  The finance ministry has told all state-run banks to disclose their 50 largest bad loans to help them make a recovery plan and establish a system for zero tolerance against wilful defaulters. In a recent meeting with heads of state-run banks, new financial services secretary Rajiv Takru told them to furnish details of their top 50 non-performing assets (NPAs), including loan sanctioning officer, terms of loan, the collateral furnished...

-The Business Standard The Union Budget shows the charitable instincts of the government continuing to overwhelm it - though some would call it part inefficiency and part helplessness. The exemptions given to citizens on the tax they ought to pay have been exceeding the Plan expenditure, and even the total fiscal deficit as it did in 2012-13. This has prompted criticism from the Left parties and activists, who view it as evidence...