-PTI   Setting a precedent before his cabinet colleagues, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has officially declared his assets and liabilities worth over Rs 4.83 crore.  Akhilesh, 38, who uploaded details of his assets and liabilities on the official website of the state government, is the first Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to make a public declaration.  In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections when Akhilesh filed his nomination papers for Kannauj parliamentary seat, he...

The purpose of this piece is not to defend the Planning Commission on poverty figures but to indicate that the methodologies have evolved over time after considerable research and they are useful for policy purposes if not for linking with entitlement programmes (some of us have written earlier that the poor and vulnerable are more numerous than the commission's poverty figures and these should be delinked from entitlement programmes).  The commission...

-Moneylife Activists have urged the CM to fill up the Posts immediately as RTI applications to various state government departments remain unanswered RTI activists and citizens are perturbed that Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has been dilly-dallying with the appointments to the vacant Posts in the state information commission, and have said that he needs to be proactive in the implementation of Right to Information (RTI) Act and address the problems that...

RTI applicants end up paying Rs 27 to get a photocopy of information sought through RTI from Barkatullah University. Reason: the university doesn't accept cash. Left with no option, RTI applicant has to cough up bank commission of Rs 25 for Rs-2 challan.  Barkatullah University deputy registrar B Bharti said: "We do not accept cash. We ask applicants to come with a bank challan if they want photo-copies."  When pointed out, former...

-The Business Standard Searching for independent assessments of govt work The rural development ministry recently proposed “independent, real-time evaluation” of the government’s flagship social welfare and development programmes, a suggestion that deserves attention not just for its pros, but also for its cons. It is true that given the explosive growth in social sector spending, effective monitoring and evaluation are ever more important. The constant hum of charges that extra money is...