The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Rs 1.71 Cr Spent on Delhi Ministers, MLAs' Foreign Tours
-Outlook Nearly Rs 1.71 crore have been spent on foreign visits of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, her cabinet colleagues and members of the Assembly in the past nine years. According to an RTI reply, Dikshit, her ministers and MLAs undertook around 57 foreign visits including to the US, the UK, Spain, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Switzerland and an amount of Rs 1.71 crore was spent between 2004 and October 2012. As...
More »Delhi government may impose blanket ban on plastic bags-Ambika Pandit & Neha Lalchandani
-The Economic Times After one failed attempt in 2009, the Delhi government is making yet another effort to make plastic bags history in Delhi. This time the proposed blanket ban comes with zero tolerance to even plastic used to cover school books, magazines and invitation cards. These are some of the provisions of a proposal of the environment department for imposing a ban on not just sale and use but even...
More »Poor response from states on FDI in multi-brand retail
-The Times of India With the UPA government's efforts to build a consensus on allowing foreign retailers in the multi-brand retail sector going nowhere, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday urged the UPA allies to help evolve a consensus on the reforms measure. Participating in the first meeting of the newly set-up UPA co-ordination committee, PM said that it was necessary to build support for the move to let in foreign retailers. The...
More »20km from Delhi, a ‘child kidnap capital’-Tapas Chakraborty
-The Telegraph Ten-year-old Ayush Chauhan was smart as well as lucky. The Class IV student gave a fictitious phone number to the three kidnappers who had dragged him into a car on a Ghaziabad street on May 11. As they kept trying the number to make a ransom call to his father, Ayush gave them the slip. Eighteen-day-old Saumya Lodi had no such luck when two masked men kidnapped her from her home...
More »