-Live Mint Manmohan Singh urges on effective decentralization of administrative powers to ensure inclusive growth Acknowledging that India's attempts to devolve power to local self-government units have not been successful, Prime MinisterManmohan Singh on Wednesday urged the effective decentralization of administrative powers to ensure inclusive growth. In a speech to mark the 20th anniversary of the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution-notified on 24 April 1993-Singh called on various arms of the...

-The Indian Express Chit fund scams shine the light on the need to overhaul the financial regulatory architecture Cases of semi-regulated or unregulated entities making unrealistic promises to consumers are roiling the financial landscape. It is high time the government sees the pattern and undertakes fundamental change. The search for a solution must factor in two realities. The first is the failure of the formal regulated financial system. The breakdown of present...

-Live Mint It's obvious that Indian experience with local governance is not what it should have been, but a change is underway Later this week, the country will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the constitutional amendments that made it mandatory for the creation of panchayats-the village-level bodies that deliver self-governance. Most may not be aware that this could well have been the eve of its 25th anniversary, but for the three-vote defeat...

-The Hindustan Times A day after the police seized Saradha Group chairman Sudipta Sen's property and froze his bank accounts for duping thousands of people with his chit-fund money-trap, a PIL was filed in Calcutta high court petitioning the court to order a CBI enquiry into the Saradha Group. Income Tax officials and Left MPs have also decided to nail all those involved with the dubious firm. While the Income-Tax department is planning...

-The Times of India PATNA: Bihar spends Rs 170 crore annually deploying 5,000 police personnel out a force of 60,000 as bodyguards for politicians, judges, Bureaucrats, police officers, members of constitutional bodies and other governmental functionaries. The NDA government in 2007 had created separate posts of 5,800 bodyguards which were later merged with the police. Patna district police has 1,500 such bodyguards. One constable used to be assigned to each MLA or MLC,...