PUBLIC INTEREST


Moneylife Digital Team 28 March 2012
Jewellers at some places are still on strike against the increase in duties in the Budget 2012-13. However, some industry experts feel that since the market and consumers have adjusted with the hike, there is no need to continue with the strike The three-day strike of the jewellery industry...

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Alekh Angre 28 March 2012
From fake marriage parties to carrying money in ambulances, politicians are always one step ahead of election officials “Despite taking preventive measures, black money and unregulated money flow continues to be a biggest hurdle in the way of free and fair elections in India,” said Dr SY...

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Chief Election Commissioner Dr SY Quraishi stresses payments by cheques and independent audit as the way out. He was speaking at Moneylife Foundation’s event, “Democracy at Crossroads—Need for Electoral Reforms” One of the biggest problems in the conduct of free and fair elections is black...

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More trouble with steering-cum-ignition-cum-immobiliser keys More on steering-cum-ignition-cum-immobiliser keys that I wrote about earlier (Moneylife, 22 March 2012). The misadventures continue. Just about four years and 45,000 kilometres later, the ignition key-based steering lock of...

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Dr SD Israni 28 March 2012
Their performance breach should be treated as a criminal offence The three basic needs of man are: food, clothing and shelter; in India, millions are denied these basic needs. Even those who are able to eat well and wear decent clothes find owning a house a major task. The main reasons are...

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RTI activist  Commodore Lokesh Batra uses RTI to make RBI act in public interest when a Supreme Court order asked 105 branches of leading banks in Noida to shift out from the residential zones they have ``illegally’’ occupied, setting off a panic among several lakh citizens Imagine the...

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Moneylife Digital Team 27 March 2012
Indore-based Swasthya Adhikar Manch has alleged that illegal drug trials have been conducted and without the approval of the drug controller. This shows a serious lack of transparency, accountability and monitoring of clinical trials Hearing a writ petition against the rampant illegal and...

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When such a currency note pops out at you from an ATM, you can do nothing about it. Take it back into the bank branch, the staff with write ‘FAKE’ or similar on it in thick marker ink, indelible, and you are on your way, poorer but not wiser. The RBI has to be much more proactive to stop the...

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Moneylife Digital Team 27 March 2012
TRAI proposes that no channel should carry ads for more than 12 minutes per hour with the same limited to six minutes for pay channels. This, analysts feel, will result in losses for channels The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently released a paper in which it has...

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Moneylife Digital Team 27 March 2012
A  recent decision of government, which allows the domestic company Natco Pharma to manufacture a generic copy of Bayer’s patented anti-cancer drug Nexavar, will bring down its price by a whopping 97%. The licence will allow Natco to sell the drug at around Rs8,880 (for a month’s therapy of...

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Moneylife Digital Team 27 March 2012
RBI’s recent report on Banking Ombudsman (BO) reveals that customers are unnecessarily victimised by banks and harassed by recovery agents due to serious lapses in the KYC (know your customer) procedures. For instance, Ankit (name changed), despite having no credit card, was receiving...

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Moneylife Digital Team 27 March 2012
A draft law, the Matrimonial Property (Rights of Women upon Marriage) Bill, prepared by the Maharashtra government, seeks to give women equal rights to the husband’s property. Matrimonial property includes movable and immovable items like husband’s share of joint family’s land or business,...

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Like cigarettes, the West increasingly sees colas as terribly bad for health and shielding their children from it because obesity, diabetes and now cancer are directly linked to these sweet, coloured liquids. For Coke and Pepsi, India, a large market with low awareness, is ripe for...

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Moneylife Digital Team 26 March 2012
Activists have urged the CM to fill up the posts immediately as RTI applications to various state government departments remain unanswered RTI activists and citizens are perturbed that Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has been dilly-dallying with the appointments to the...

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Selection and purchase of motor vehicles for the armed forces has to be done in an open and transparent process. Not necessarily from only the one who has had a monopoly since Independence—and has not done much to upgrade their 4x4 either General VK Singh has well and truly thrown an angry...

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Moneylife Digital Team 26 March 2012
 Maharashtra CM dilly-dallies on filling up key state information commission posts. In a reply to Central Information Commissioner’s letter to the state CM, the latter replied that “he would keep the matter in his mind”, and it still remains there without any action Key posts in the Maharashtra...

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Why did the PMO try a defence that was bound to be exposed within an hour? Not telling the truth is equal to lying. Not telling the whole truth is also a form of lying. What do you call editing a letter to present a wrong picture that makes you look pure as driven snow? In my book, that...

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Moneylife Digital Team 24 March 2012
The former managing director of Konkan Railways feels that there is a strong lobby of bureaucrats who are hand-in-glove with multinational companies in order to get hold of the ACD technology, which is an exclusive patented product of the Railways. Rajaram Bojji, former managing director of...

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Alekh Angre 22 March 2012
The pathetic and inadequate public transport system in Mumbai benefits everyone except the common people and hence it is left in dire straits, say experts Mumbai’s public transport continues to be in dire straits with inadequate public bus transport along with issues of soaring fuel prices...

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Moneylife Digital Team 22 March 2012
Activists demand revocation of clearance for the project and a stop to all police actions The arrest of many agitators by the police at Idinthikara, Kudankulam, has been criticised by citizen groups and activists, who have demanded that the crackdown be stopped immediately and work at the...

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