Agriculture minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who set off speculation about being divested of one of his portfolios after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday to seek a reduction of his workload, may retain his existing responsibilities, but get one or two ministers of state to share his burden. He is in charge of three critical departments: agriculture, consumer affairs, and food and public distribution.

There are indications that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might go in for reshuffling his team, besides inducting a few new faces before the ensuing session of Parliament, which is scheduled to begin in the last week of this month.

The Congress-led ruling UPA is for aam aadmi (common man) and they mostly live in villages. Most of the flagship programmes with huge allocations are aimed at providing succour to them. But now a thought has struck the minds of policy makers in the government that people should pay user charges for using rural roads.

The group of ministers (GoM) on caste-based census headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has not met even for once to deliberate on the issue. Sensing this as a delaying tactic, the Yadav troika — Mulayam, Lalu and Sharad — is once again re-grouping and has threatened to launch a nationwide agitation ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament scheduled to begin in the third week of July.

AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi has thrown up an interesting idea — to examine if implementation of the UPA’s flagship social sector programmes could be outsourced to private entities on a commiss

In a bid resolve the Unit Linked Insurance policy (Ulip) row between Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and the Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) over jurisdictional issues, the government is set to bring an ordinance and constitute a permanent joint mechanism to be headed by finance minister to look into the matter.

With Trinamul Congress chief and railway minister Mamta Banerjee absent, as she is — as always — in Kolkata, the government Tuesday approved disinvestment of 10 per cent each in two West Bengal-based two PSUs — Coal India Ltd (CIL) and Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL).
Though the proposals were listed on the agenda for last week’s meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affa

Even as the state unit showing eagerness to form a popular government in Jharkhand, the Congress central leadership has decided not to oblige them at least till Bihar elections, which are scheduled for October-November this year.

The government is planning changes in the law to make divorce quicker and easier for Hindu couples. The Union Cabinet will consider a proposal Thursday to amend the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 and the Special Marriage Act 1954 to make “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” a ground for divorce.

With the ministers belonging to Congress allies in the ruling UPA, such as the DMK and the NCP, A.Raja and Sharad Pawar, respectively, proving to be a headache for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the C