-The Telegraph Annual expenses for the government’s food security programme have been estimated at Rs 112,205 crore, which will make it very difficult for the government to fulfill its commitments on checking fiscal deficit. Food and consumers affairs minister K.V. Thomas disclosed the massive bill on the programme today in the Rajya Sabha, though no mention of this was made in Friday’s budget. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had just said he would foot...

Parliament has the power and jurisdiction to clarify, enact law or bring amendments to a law with retrospective effect to remove the basis or defects in a judgment, say legal experts. Under the proposed amendment to the Income Tax Act announced by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the budget, to come into effect from April 1, 1962, all persons, resident or non-resident, having business connection in India will have to incur...

-Bloomberg   World food prices will drop this year as increase in unemployment in developing and developed countries slows growth in demand, the United Nations said.   “We have started to see a decline in food prices,” Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, said at a conference in Hanoi on Thursday. World economic expansion will slow to 3.3% this year from 3.8% in 2011, according to the International...

Token relief to individual taxpayers will cost the exchequer Rs. 4,500 crore In a “pragmatic and domestic growth-oriented” budgetary exercise aimed at shoring up investor confidence and investment, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday sought to tap indirect taxes, especially service tax, to rake in an additional Rs. 45,940 crore into his kitty. Presenting the budget for 2012-13 in Parliament, Mr. Mukherjee provided a token relief to individual taxpayers that will cost...

The Supreme Court will examine the constitutional validity of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, which LIMits the liability of an operator in the event of a nuclear disaster to Rs. 1,500 crore. A Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar on Friday issued notice to the Centre on a writ petition filed jointly by Common Cause; the Centre for Public Interest Litigation;...