-Down to Earth blog Simply put, the sand mafias originated because the sand business is low investment, low risk and high returns, notwithstanding few roadblocks like Ms Durga Shakti Nagpal or the media taking up her cause as a cause celebre! For they know well that with raw material (sand) in easy reach and end user (realty sector) little bothered wherefrom or legality of the ware, business as usual, no matter, shall...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Govt to table bill exempting parties from RTI Act today
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government is slated to introduce a bill to amend the RTI Act excluding political parties from the ambit of the law in LokSabha on Monday. The bill will be introduced by minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions V Narayanasamy. The bill was cleared by the Union Cabinet on August 1 and has been under fire from eminent citizens and RTI activists. The...
More »When someone moves your cheese -Maja Daruwala and Venkatesh Nayak
-The Hindu Unlike many countries that have passed laws to protect citizens' privacy, the Indian state is collecting more and more information about private individuals under various pretexts and restricting their right to access their own information Does a serving employee of a premier intelligence agency have the right to inspect his own biodata which that agency handed over to another public authority? Then again, does a former employee of that agency...
More »Poverty play -Jayati Ghosh
-Frontline Once more, without feeling: the government's latest poverty estimates. YET again the Central Government has mired itself in controversy by releasing its latest poverty estimates based on the consumption expenditure survey of the NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) Survey of 2011-12. The Planning Commission's poverty line, using methodology suggested by the Tendulkar Committee in 2010, is now apparently defined as the spending of Rs. 27.20 per capita per day in rural...
More »Wholesale price inflation likely edged up to 5 per cent in July
-Reuters BANGALORE: Inflation likely picked up slightly in July as its falling currency pushed up the price of imports, making raw materials more costly, and on rising food prices, a Reuters poll showed. Wholesale prices, India's key inflation measure, rose an annual 5 percent last month, the poll of 30 economists showed, hitting the ceiling of the Reserve Bank of India's commonly perceived comfort level. That was up slightly up from June's 4.89...
More »