Amidst the raging debate on black money and some names floating around, a fresh petition filed in the Supreme Court has brought its attention to the action of several European countries proceeding against their citizens on the basis of the details provided by two bank officials and unearthing huge deposits with a Swiss bank.

A change in leadership has changed the stance of the food ministry on the proposed National Food Security Bill.
Till agriculture minister Sharad Pawar held the food portfolio, the ministry used to express reservations on the proposed food security bill citing availability of grains and

With the ICC Cricket World Cup round-the-corner, the Centre is gearing up to meet the challenge of providing fool-proof security and timely intelligence to ward off any terror threat. However, the security of the venues will be the responsibility of the state governments concerned, a government official said. The official said that there are no specific intelligence inputs of terror outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba or Indian Mujahideen planning to create unrest during the period. But state governments will take appropriate steps to deploy adequate security personnel and provide tight security arrangement during the games, the official said.

The Plan size for the year 2011-12 may see an overall increase of 18 per cent in the upcoming Budget. But this could become real only when the finance ministry drops the idea of insisting the Planning Commission to shift many schemes, which are being run on cess collection from non-plan side into the ambit of plan expenditure.

The ministry of defence (MoD) is expecting a “routine increase” of seven to eight per cent in the forthcoming defence budget this year (for 2011-12) and is also confident of spending the entire capital expenditure amount earmarked (for military modernisation) in the budget tabled in 2010-11, top MoD sources have told this newspaper.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is all set to give a big push to the party’s preparations for next year’s UP Assembly elections by kickstarting membership drive of the youth wing of the party next month in three regions of the state.

Hinting that the Left parties may agree for a discussion on a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the alleged 2G spectrum scam in Parliament, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, while speaking to a TV channel said it could be done, provided the government gives a commitment for setting up such a panel.

Attacking the Congress for surrendering to “family monopoly” on the post of party president, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani in his latest blog has said that during the freedom movement, the AICC president used to be chosen only for one tenure and even Mahatma Gandhi, who had a lot of influence in the party, was elected only once in 1924. But the Congress chose to dub Mr Advani’s comment “frustrated outbursts”.

Declaring that he was forced to launch a party as the late Y.S. Rajasekhar’s government was corrupt, Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) chief Chiranjeevi on Sunday said, “Corruption was at its worst only during the reign of the late YSR.”

In another blow to the telecom department over the 2G spectrum scam, former Central Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha on Sunday stated that the telecom officials created hindrance in the investigation of the 2G spectrum scam.