UTTAR Pradesh should have been the richest state in the country, riding on the boom in the real estate industry. Going by the barrage of text messages flooding mobiles, and the advertisements in newspapers, on TV and FM, the towns of UP – particularly Noida and Greater Noida – appear to be celebrating a round-the-year “property sale festival”. Yet, it is not so. According to government rates, the builder has to pay Rs 800-1500 per square foot – that too in 10 to 15 years’ time – depending on the size and location of the plot. The UP government gets 10 percent of the official rate upfront while the builder can pay the rest over a decade or so. The flip side is that the builder has to pay up Rs 11,000- 15,000 per square foot immediately as unofficial peripheral charges. This “unofficial” system also stipulates that 40 percent of the total deal has to be paid upfront and the remainder after the formal letter of allotment. Chief Minister Mayawati, the coloniser of UP, knows well how to play this game.Read more....
IN these ostentatious times, it is warming to find level-headed and unassuming people. Ashok Lavasa, the 1980- batch IAS officer from Haryana who is Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Power, recently married off his daughter in a ceremony marked by simplicity and sobriety in Suraj Kund, Faridabad. The gathering, a virtual reunion of the 1980 batch, also highlighted the popularity of Lavasa, a photographer of repute. 
BELIEVE it or not, the private airline operators are the de facto bosses of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Director General of Civil Aviation. The airlines operators have evolved a formula to rule over these powerful entities – by employing the children of some of the top officials. This, we are told, is the reason nobody knows what is happening regarding the air-worthiness of aircraft and the competence of pilots. 
IT is anybody’s guess why the account of the Mumbai Police was transferred from State Bank of India to Axis Bank, a relative novice in the banking industry. Government departments are generally wary of private banks when it comes to the salary account. But the Mumbai Police, for whatever reason, set a new precedent under the baton of former commissioner Anami N Roy, a Sharad Pawar acolyte. Roy also failed to look after the interests of lowergrade police personnel. 
ARUP Roy Choudhury, 50, has taken over the reins of India’s most powerful company, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), as its Chairman and Managing Director. It has been a tradition in the NTPC that every chairman runs his office with the existing setup of personal secretaries and personal assistants. But Choudhury brought three deputy general managers from his former organization, NBCC.