-The Economic Times   The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) will soon have a dedicated cell to monitor election-related expenditure by political parties and donations made to them. "A special cell is being created under CBDT to look at election funding," said a Finance ministry official. The new cell will be headed by a commissioner rank officer of the I-T department and will monitor election-related expenditure and political funding and enforce...

-PTI   The Bihar government has decided to rope in professionals from the private sector to monitor the rural development schemes in state, Rural Development Minister Nitish Mishra said. "We have decided to hire the best brains from across the country to monitor ongoing rural development schemes inBihar, he said. The state government has already published ads in national dailies for inviting applications for the post of 32 executives and the recruitment of the...

-The United Nations   The United Nations is set to launch an all-out attack next week on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), bringing together dozens of heads of State to promote the lifestyle changes needed to curb the soaring toll of a scourge that already causes over 63 per cent of all the world’s deaths. The high level General Assembly meeting, held at the start of its annual General Debate on Monday and Tuesday, is...

Farmers will not have to cough up any tax upfront on the compensation money they receive for their land acquired by the government. The rural development ministry has clarified after complaints that in absence of clear rules the harshest provisions were being imposed. "We have issued orders that all compensation money for agricultural land acquisitions in both urban and rural areas should be made without any deductions," said an official in...

-IANS   Goa's illegal mining scandal is worth Rs10,000 crore ($2 billion), former deputy chief minister of Goa and Congress legislator Dayanand Narvekar on Saturday told the Justice MB Shah commission probing the scam. Narvekar, who was a cabinet minister in Chief Minister Digambar Kamat's Congress-led government until a couple of years ago, also told Shah during a public hearing at the state secretariat that constant complaints in writing to the state chief...