-The Hindu     Minister relaxed tax benefit-related residency norms for foreign investors Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday allayed apprehensions over the imposition of wealth tax on agricultural land within urban area limits to provide a big relief to farmers, especially in Haryana and Punjab. Mr. Chidambaram relaxed the tax benefit-related residency norms for foreign investors routing funds through countries such as Mauritius and lowered the withholding tax rate to five per cent from...

-The Times of India Overuse of antibiotics has led to a situation in which even simple infections acquired outside the hospital are turning drug-resistant. This has been revealed in a recent study conducted by a city private hospital on ICU patients. It showed that nearly one-fourth of all admissions due to infection of the urinary tract, pneumonia or blood stream infection were community-acquired which means that these people contracted the drug-resistant...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra is in the CPM's firing line for attending a three-day Banga Sammelan at Las Vegas last year in which Sudipta Sen's Saradha Group was the main sponsor. A few days ago, the CPM had asked the government to reveal who sponsored chief minister Mamata Banerjee's chartered flight from Delhi on April 10. Mitra rejected the insinuations and said the state exchequer...

-Down to Earth New deal must not attempt to rewrite or reinterpret the Convention, say developing countries The second session of the ADP, acronym for Ad hoc Working Group on Durban Platform, began in Bonn on April 29, 2013. At the opening session, countries outlined their positions on what they expect of the global deal on climate change, to be decided in 2015 and which will be implemented from 2020. The ADP, which...

-The Times of India Less than 24 hours before the Supreme Court takes up the coal scam hearing on Tuesday, a blame game broke out within the government over who was responsible for incorrectly telling the court that the CBI had not shared the contents of its status report on " Coalgate" with the political executive. In a four-page letter to attorney general Goolam Vahanvati, additional solicitor general Harin Raval said he...