Five must-read stories—January 12

RBI Governor cautions against sops

"Guarantees increase government's contingent liabilities, and add to risk premia for its own borrowing," RBI Governor Urjit Patel said even as he stressed the need for the Centre to stick to the path of fiscal consolidation. The outstanding debt liabilities of the Centre and the states hovered at 68.1% of GDP in 2014-15. In The Telegraph.

Trump invective against media, intelligence agencies

US President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday unleashed a firestorm of invective against “shameful” news outlets and the “disgraceful” behaviour of the intelligence agencies, in a feisty press conference as he attempted to demolish salacious allegations concerning his dealings in Russia. Coming just nine days before he enters the White House as the 45th president of the United States, Trump staged his first encounter with the world’s media since last July, admitting that he had actively avoided subjecting himself to press scrutiny in recent months on the grounds that we had been “getting quite a bit of inaccurate news”. In The Guardian.

BSF orders audit of jawans’ ration

Among other steps taken by the BSF were chalking out shortcomings of the present process, suggesting procedural and systematic improvements, vigilance for double checks, enhancing formal and informal interactions with jawans and introduction of systemic innovations to ensure cashless transactions in all messes. In The Hindu.

Kejriwal rules himself out in Punjab

“Punjab chief minister will not be from Pakistan or London or America. He will be a leader from Punjab,” Arvind Kejriwal said at a rally in Patiala. He added that he had been entrusted with the responsibility of the national capital and would continue to be the chief minister there. In The Indian Express.

Information Commissioner shifted after order on PM’s degree

Barely two days after Information Commissioner MS Acharyulu’s order allowing inspection of Delhi University’s 1978 BA degree records was made public, Chief Information Commissioner RK Mathur has taken away the charge of Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) from him. According to an order issued Tuesday evening, all complaints and appeals related to HRD Ministry will now be looked into by another Information Commissioner Manjula Parashar. In The Indian Express.