-The Hindu The Central Information Commission has imposed a penalty of Rs.25,000 on the Public Information Officer of the Delhi Government's Urban Development Department for violating provisions of the Right to Information Act by delaying furnishing of information to the appellant on regularisation of unauthorised colonies. The appellant, Bhupender Singh Rawat, who is convener of non-government organisation Jan Sangharsh Vahini, had sought details on 13 points from the Urban Development Department. When...

The common man, whose concerns were at the heart of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance’s two successful election campaigns, doesn’t seem to be the focus of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget. Experts and political analysts say the aam admi doesn’t appear to be the dominant concern anymore, prompting speculation about Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi’s role. She has thus far been setting the UPA’s social agenda through the National Advisory Council...

-PTI About 58.8 per cent of households in Maharashtra have TV sets while 13.3 per cent have computer/laptop and 69.1 per cent have telephone/mobile in their households, as per the data on "housing, amenities and assets" in the 2011 census. The respective figures at national level are 47.2, 9.5 and 63.2 per cent, Ranjit Singh Deol, director Census operations, Maharashtra, told reporters in Mumbai. The share of households having two wheelers is 24.9...

Budget 2012 has further validated the existence of the Unique Identification Authority of India, whose identity was under question barely six months ago, by giving it more money and responsibilities to shape the government's technological interventions. The government has allocated the UIDAI Rs 1,758 crore from the Budget in 2012-13, a year-on-year increase of 47%, primarily to increase enrolments of Indians for unique IDs to 600 million, from 200 million.  A...

Most of us don’t even get a single shot at making history — Manmohan Singh has a second chance The fiscal deficit is an outcome, not a policy. It is the net resolution of the policies pertaining to taxes and expenditure. It is worth analysing separately the two components of the deficit. The table reports the results of relating the tax and expenditure share of GDP to per capita income for...