During the Chief Ministers’ Conference on June 29th 2004, the Prime Minister of India has set the proverbial cat among the pigeons by urging the Chief Ministers to consider the possibility of “providing block grants to districts based on their incidence of poverty to plan and implement strategies that optimize their resource potential.” This, he said, “would ensure that district level planning as envisaged in the Constitution Amendment on Panchayat Raj becomes a reality.”

dir="ltr">Harold McMillan famously said that one week was a long time in politics. NDA ignored that maxim in the exuberence which followed the victory of BJP in MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh in December. The stunning verdict in Lok Sabha polls brings us back to the realities of our politics.

The proposed National Judicial Commission (NJC) and amendments to contempt law raised serious debate on judicial accountability.

A budget is not merely about numbers, receipts and expenditure.  It is about what is to be done with our money, what policies and services are preferred, how resources are spent, and getting good value for our money.

AP  draft   budget for 2002-03  conceals  as  much   as   it   reveals.  An expenditure of Rs. 32,981 crores is proposed for the year.  Of this, wages and pensions of employees account for Rs. 11,090 crores, or 82.7% of the Rs 13,408 crores tax revenues!  This is quite alarming.