-NDTV The Kelkar committee has said subsidies pose the greatest risk to the country's fiscal situation, while suggesting that the excise and service tax rates should be cut to 8% over the next few years. The panel calls for the need to step up disinvestment drive in state-run firms for fiscal consolidation. It says diesel should be deregulated by 2014 and all subsidy on cooking gas be cut by 2015. All subsidies must be...

-The Economic Times The government appears to have developed cold feet over implementing Kelkar panel's recommendations to slash subsidies drastically at a time when it is facing backlash for raising diesel prices and capping subsidised cooking cylinders. The report, which has been put out for public comments, warns that India is on the edge of a fiscal precipice. A senior finance ministry official has said that the report has not been accepted...

-The Telegraph The enormity of the real challenge before Manmohan Singh is far higher than that posed by Mamata Banerjee. A “perfect storm” is gathering around the economy, according to a Centre-commissioned report packed with suggestions for a series of tough measures that will affect daily life and test the government’s resolve to wade further into unpalatable waters. The report presented by the Vijay Kelkar panel, which was asked to suggest a road...

-Bloomberg It wasn't the Gettsyburg Address -- unless it's poker faces we're comparing. Future historians aren't going to be parsing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech for hidden meanings, and rhetoricians won't be delighting in the majesty of its style and the compression of its effects. It inflamed no passions, as did Mitt Romney's words about the "47 percent," and asserted no big idea or thesis, unless there was one contained in the...

-PTI Economic prosperity is fuelling food inflation in the country, Chief Economic Adviser Raghuram Rajan today said while making a case for increasing productivity to fight price rise. In his first media interaction after assuming charge, Rajan justified the diesel price hike saying there is a need to link domestic fuel prices with international rates to curb Fiscal Deficit. "One of the concerns of the last few years has been food inflation, which...