-The Times of India NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday sought clarifications from senior Cabinet ministers on the justification for bringing an ordinance that allows convicted lawmakers to hold on to their seats in Parliament and state legislatures. The President, who was forwarded the ordinance cleared by the Cabinet on Tuesday, sought clarifications separately from home minister Sushil Shinde, parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath and law minister Kapil Sibal. The inquiry came...

-The Hindu Bihar is the second most backward, and Gujarat is less developed A panel headed by Raghuram Rajan has recommended a new index of backwardness to determine which States need special assistance. The new methodology ranks Odisha as India's most backward State, Bihar, which has been seeking ‘special' status, as the second most backward, and Gujarat as one of the "less developed" States. Goa is India's most developed State. In May this year,...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A high-level panel has recommended new criteria for measuring the backwardness of states and proposed the devolution of funds to them through an index that identifies Odisha and Bihar as the least developed states and Goa as the most developed one. The committee had been set up by the government amid demands for "special category" status by Bihar and was headed by the then chief economic...

-Economic and Political Weekly In the popular and media imagination, fed by economists and columnists, Gujarat and Bihar have both recorded an extraordinary economic performance in the past decade. But a careful analysis shows that Gujarat, always one of the richest states, has done no better than before. In neither industry nor agriculture has its position radically changed. The only dramatic difference has been the emergence of import-dependent and export-oriented petroleum...

-Press Information Bureau The India Rural Development Report 2012/13 was released here by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development, Government of India. The Report was prepared by IDFC Foundation in collaboration with network partners, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), the Institute for Rural Management Anand (IRMA), and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), with contributions from several other researchers, experts and civil society organisations. On...