-The Times of India MUMBAI: The government on Thursday issued the long-pending drug price control order, paving the way for the implementation of national pharmaceutical pricing policy, which will lead to a reduction in prices of medicines on an average by 20-25%, and in some life-saving ones, by up to 80%. Prices of 652 formulations under 27 therapeutic areas like anti-allergic (cetrizine), cardiac (aten), gastro-intestinal medicines (ocid), pain-killers ( paracetamol) and anti-diabetic...

-The Hindu A committee comprising farmers' representatives will look at the method of fixing the minimum support price of agricultural commodities. It will suggest if there is a need for the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to re-position itself in the light of the demands from farmers to raise the remunerative price for essential commodities. At its first meeting held here on Thursday, the panel headed by Director of National Centre...

-The Hindu Kolkata: In a setback to the Mamata Banerjee government, the Calcutta High Court on Friday directed that panchayat polls in 17 districts be held in three phases with the government fully compensating the shortfall in security forces to the satisfaction of the State Election Commission. Justice Biswanath Somadder rejected the government's arguments on all the contentious issues in its writ petition and directed that it inform the Commission of...

-The Indian Express Saradha group CMD Sudipta Sen and executive director Debjani Mukherjee were questioned together for the first time by police today. Sen broke down in front of the interrogators when Mukherjee blamed him for the company going bust, police sources said. Mukherjee, who has been "cooperating" with the police since she was arrested, is likely to become an approver. Officials earlier said that Mukherjee could become approver only after the police...

-The Indian Express The Congress's bill could end up sponsoring the NDA's campaigns A good thing about the logjam in Parliament, it has to be said, is that it has prevented the ill-advised food security bill from being passed. It would, though, be naive on our part to presume the BJP stalled Parliament - the Congress's blatant abuse of the CBI process was a big reason for this - only because it...