Above the Fold: Top stories of the day
1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Indian Ocean tour could see India developing strategic assets in Mauritius and the Seychelles.
2. Bad debts on the books of public sector banks have hit a 10-year high.
3. Swacch Bharat could mean a 1% tax on 5-star hotel bills.
4. Malaria is a bigger killer of paramilitary forces than Maoists.
The Big Story: Singh Inter Pares
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been named accused in the coal allocation scam, with a court summoning him for having played a role in ensuring windfall gains to a private company at the cost of a state-owned one. The court also summoned industrialist KM Birla and former Coal Secretary PC Parakh among others.
The matter comes up just as the country was seeking to get past the reminders of the previous administration's corruption through an auction of coal blocks and just as Singh's party, the Congress, has been seeking to reinvent itself as being pro-poor. The Congress was expecting to make waves this week by stymieing Modi's grand plans in the Rajya Sabha and then announcing Vice President Rahul Gandhi as its new leader at a conclave next month. While both will still happen, Manmohan Singh's court summons will fall right in the middle of those storylines.
Unlike in the past, the party has said it will fully back the former prime minister. Singh has himself said he is open to any investigation. Both of those commitments will be fully tested in days to come.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's biggest story
The ghosts of Coalgate have come back to haunt Manmohan Singh, who will have to explain how a coal block reserved for the public sector came to fall in private hands.
Need-to-Know 1: AAPocalypse Now
The Aam Aadmi Party is in proper meltdown mode right now, as bitter infighting between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's camp and that of senior leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan gets even uglier. The party has been hit by internal stings that reveal it tried to cobble together support from Congress leaders to form a government last year and by a letter from Yadav and Bhushan that raise serious concerns about how it is run. Kejriwal himself remains at a naturopathy course in Bangalore.
Need-to-Know 2: Ordinance Raj-ya Sabha
After the government gave in to the Opposition's demand that two bills aimed at replacing ordinances could be sent to select committees, it looks like some laws will actually make their way through the Rajya Sabha this session. The Mining and Motor Vehicle Bills will return from the select committee within seven days and the Congress, and a few other parties, have suggested they will support passage of the insurance bill. But the law to replace the Land Acquisition ordinance remains the big struggle for the government.
Politicking: Top political stories
1. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won a trust vote in the state assembly, even managing to get the support of nine partymen who had previously rebelled.
2. The Trinamool Congress appears to be cozying up to the Bharatiya Janata Party, at least for the duration of the Parliament sessions.
3. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on its part, is surprisingly making common cause with the Congress.
Giggle
Punditry: The best commentary
1. Pratap Bhanu Mehta says we have left a weak and incompetent government for one with hubris and incompetence.
2. Nalanda university is yet another expensive government failure in education, writes Anjuli Bhargava.
3. Srinath Raghavan insists much more needs to be done if we want to see domestic defence production.
4. Do the accused in trials have a right to control their perception in the media, asks Anuj Bhawania.
Don't Miss
It's been 85 years today since Gandhi set out on his Salt March but Indians still pay a tax on the white mineral.
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1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Indian Ocean tour could see India developing strategic assets in Mauritius and the Seychelles.
2. Bad debts on the books of public sector banks have hit a 10-year high.
3. Swacch Bharat could mean a 1% tax on 5-star hotel bills.
4. Malaria is a bigger killer of paramilitary forces than Maoists.
The Big Story: Singh Inter Pares
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been named accused in the coal allocation scam, with a court summoning him for having played a role in ensuring windfall gains to a private company at the cost of a state-owned one. The court also summoned industrialist KM Birla and former Coal Secretary PC Parakh among others.
The matter comes up just as the country was seeking to get past the reminders of the previous administration's corruption through an auction of coal blocks and just as Singh's party, the Congress, has been seeking to reinvent itself as being pro-poor. The Congress was expecting to make waves this week by stymieing Modi's grand plans in the Rajya Sabha and then announcing Vice President Rahul Gandhi as its new leader at a conclave next month. While both will still happen, Manmohan Singh's court summons will fall right in the middle of those storylines.
Unlike in the past, the party has said it will fully back the former prime minister. Singh has himself said he is open to any investigation. Both of those commitments will be fully tested in days to come.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's biggest story
The ghosts of Coalgate have come back to haunt Manmohan Singh, who will have to explain how a coal block reserved for the public sector came to fall in private hands.
Need-to-Know 1: AAPocalypse Now
The Aam Aadmi Party is in proper meltdown mode right now, as bitter infighting between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's camp and that of senior leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan gets even uglier. The party has been hit by internal stings that reveal it tried to cobble together support from Congress leaders to form a government last year and by a letter from Yadav and Bhushan that raise serious concerns about how it is run. Kejriwal himself remains at a naturopathy course in Bangalore.
Need-to-Know 2: Ordinance Raj-ya Sabha
After the government gave in to the Opposition's demand that two bills aimed at replacing ordinances could be sent to select committees, it looks like some laws will actually make their way through the Rajya Sabha this session. The Mining and Motor Vehicle Bills will return from the select committee within seven days and the Congress, and a few other parties, have suggested they will support passage of the insurance bill. But the law to replace the Land Acquisition ordinance remains the big struggle for the government.
Politicking: Top political stories
1. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won a trust vote in the state assembly, even managing to get the support of nine partymen who had previously rebelled.
2. The Trinamool Congress appears to be cozying up to the Bharatiya Janata Party, at least for the duration of the Parliament sessions.
3. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on its part, is surprisingly making common cause with the Congress.
Giggle
Cartoon @EconomicTimes Bangalore pic.twitter.com/c4sCR7R76m
— R Prasad (@rprasad66) March 11, 2015 Punditry: The best commentary
1. Pratap Bhanu Mehta says we have left a weak and incompetent government for one with hubris and incompetence.
2. Nalanda university is yet another expensive government failure in education, writes Anjuli Bhargava.
3. Srinath Raghavan insists much more needs to be done if we want to see domestic defence production.
4. Do the accused in trials have a right to control their perception in the media, asks Anuj Bhawania.
Don't Miss
It's been 85 years today since Gandhi set out on his Salt March but Indians still pay a tax on the white mineral.
"In April 1, 1947, Nehru’s interim government did abolish the salt duty. Once the patriotic rush of blood to the head had subsided, however, more prosaic worries of administration took over. As the website of the Salt Department points out, seemingly, without irony: 'After abolition of duty on salt, a question arose how to meet expenses for maintaining salt department. [The] Government of India imposed a cess on salt in the nature of excise duty with effect from April 1, 1947 which was subsequently regularised by enacting salt cess Act, 1953.'"
