-Outlook After a few weeks of hiatus, state-owned oil companies have resumed issuing new subsidised cooking gas (LPG) connections, beginning with North Eastern states. In September, issue of new LPG connections had been put on hold pending a massive nationwide exercise to eliminate users having multiple connections at the same address. The three oil PSUs have now started releasing new LPG connections in Meghalaya, Sikkim, Nagaland and Andaman & NICobar Islands, said Indian...

-Frontline There are no effective vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, but its spread can be controlled in India through vector management.  JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS, or JE, has become endemic in many parts of the country, occurring repeatedly in epidemic form in many of them—for instance, in parts of Gorakhpur in northern Uttar Pradesh. One can expect JE-type epidemics year after year in States where prolonged drought-like conditions are followed by heavy monsoons. This leads to...

-The Hindu Applications for various services can be submitted online Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala State Information Technology Mission (KSITM) is gearing up for a State-wide roll out of e-district Kerala, a mission mode project under the national e-governance plan. District e-governance committees have been formed in all the 14 districts. As many as 10-lakh digital certificates have been issued to applicants in less than two years since the launch of the pilot project in...

-Mirror News Tax row coffee chain pays 'poverty wages' despite making £222 million profit in three months TAX row coffee chain Starbucks is paying workers just 25p an hour at its newly-opened stores in India. The pittance falls far below the country’s official living wage and means some staff earn less in a day than the price of the ­cheapest cup of Starbucks coffee in the UK. Details of the wages emerged as the...

-Mainstream Weekly Dr Binayak Sen, an internationally renowned medical practitioner and social activist (a leading figure in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties), was incarcerated in Chhattisgarh and held in detention in Raipur having been branded as a Maoist for his activities in defence of poor tribals in the State. He is now out on bail. The following is the text of the Arvind Narayan Das Memorial Lecture he delivered in...