Delhi's private schools had complained that they were reeling under the burden of having to pay teachers higher salaries recommended by the 6th Pay Commission. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), however, said they used the Pay Commission as an alibi to fatten themselves. In a damning indictment, the auditor held that 25 elite private schools passed on the burden of implementing the recommendations of the 6th Pay...
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Rural India's swift digital TV embrace by Sharmistha Mukherjee
Digital TV penetration in rural India is three-fold higher than in urban areas, says a report compiled by the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) on the pay TV sector. Though nearly 80 per cent of households in urban areas have television sets, more than double the 38 per cent in rural areas, the adoption of technology has been much faster in the latter. Digital TV penetration is 34 per cent in rural...
More »Indian State Empowers Poor to Fight Corruption by Lydia Polgreen
The village bureaucrat shifted from foot to foot, hands clasped behind his back, beads of sweat forming on his balding head. The eyes of hundreds of wiry village laborers, clad in dusty lungis, were fixed upon him. A group of auditors, themselves villagers, read their findings. A signature had been forged for the delivery of soil to rehabilitate farmland. The soil had never arrived, and about $4,000 was missing. The...
More »The Girl Who Was Once Nira Sharma by Sunit Arora
* Moved to London from Kenya in the 1970s. Schooled at Haberdashers’ Aske’s. Bachelor’s at University of Warwick. * Has three siblings. Father in aviation. Three sons from failed marriage with UK businessman Janak Radia. * India entry in 1995. Sahara liaison officer. India rep of Singapore Airlines, KLM, UK Air. * Floats Crown Air as MD in 2000, with sister Karuna Menon as partner. Secures FIPB clearance to...
More »New loan sharks by S Nagesh Kumar
The rural poor in Andhra Pradesh, a State showcased as a model for SHG-bank linkage, are caught in the vortex of microfinance. WITHIN a decade of their coming into operation, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have dealt a serious blow to the economy and the well-being of thousands of families in rural Andhra Pradesh. Harassment by their collection agents has allegedly driven at least 60 borrowers to death, and the number is...
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