-The Times of India   The finance ministry is devising a voluntary tax disclosure scheme that could provide amnesty to people who have stashed unaccounted Money in tax havens and other jurisdictions abroad by charging them a "levy". Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, after a meeting with industry captains recently, activated a committee on black Money set up last year to work out a scheme on voluntary disclosure. This scheme will allow corporates and...

-The Telegraph   Home minister P. Chidambaram today described Left-wing extremism as the “most violent movement” in the country as he put the onus of governance on states to win the battle for minds and hearts in Maoist-affected areas. The prod came at a workshop where the minister told collectors of 60 affected districts that the time had come to address the “trust deficit” among villagers. Chidambaram cited figures to show that Left-wing rebels...

The famine in the Horn of Africa is being seen as an inevitable consequence of drought, "the worst for 60 years". But this famine was almost entirely preventable, and presenting it as a natural disaster doesn't help; nor does our insistence on waiting for a major crisis before responding. Even though lessons about how to prevent famines have been documented time and time again, we don't learn. The conflict in Somalia...

A survey conducted across nine states by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and Allahabad University suggests that the much maligned system has revived, prodded by politics, good governance and the apex court. It also found the poor to be averse to cash transfers Kotri is a mid-sized village in Desuri block (Pali district, Rajasthan), about 15 kilometres away from the nearest large bus stand and market place. We walked to...

-DNA   The Centre's debt relief scheme for the farmers has given anything but relief to the poor farmers. Despite the Rs 65,318.33-crore Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme (ADWDRS) launched by the UPA with much fanfare in 2008, nearly 43.42 million (48.6 per cent) of the 89.35 million farmer households are still in debt. This is the finding of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report on 'Indebtedness of Farmers Household'. The scheme benefited...