-The Hindu The Centre will soon implement Phase II of the Rajiv Awas Yojna with a focus on providing long-term and bankable property rights to slum dwellers, Union Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Ajay Maken said, soon after taking charge of his new Ministry on Tuesday. Talking to Journalists at his office in Nirman Bhavan, Mr. Maken said the Centre will adopt the twin strategy of funding and “mandatory reforms” in...

-MoneyLife.in If you were wondering why most of the recent major cases of corruption have not been exposed by opposition parties, especially the BJP, now you have the answer: they are all in it together. I am ready for any inquiry,” repeated Nitin Gadkari on every television channel where he brazenly defended the dubious shell companies and land allotment that propelled the growth of his ballooning ‘social entrepreneurship’. The irony is that Nitin...

Environmentalists, civil society groups and scientists working with marginal farmers have welcomed recommendation of the Supreme Court appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) placing a 10-year moratorium on field trials of GM crops in India. The TEC freeze advice includes field trials of Bt transgenics in all food crops which are used directly for human consumption. (See links below for the actual report and more details) The TEC, which was appointed in...

-DNA No one believes the news anymore. Who can blame them? The newspapers are so noisy, filled with scams and slanging matches, that even a top newspaper-bureaucrat like your columnist cringes while scanning the morning’s front pages. I too don’t want to read the papers. Then there’s the matter of credibility: the media is barely clinging to the last vestige of public trust, and that’s only because the institution of the...

-The HIndu In what’s being called a reverse sting, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) chairman Naveen Jindal has released video recordings which allegedly show Zee editors trying to extort Rs. 100 crore in return for the channel not airing damaging stories on coal block allocations involving his company. In a counter-offensive, Zee claims that it was JSPL which offered to pay the channel. At a dramatic press conference on Thursday, Mr. Jindal,...