-PTI Actress Shabana Azmi today criticised Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for brokering yesterday's deal between Raj Thackeray and Karan Johar while the Congress demanded his dismissal for aiding "extortion" of the film industry. But emboldened by its success, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena asked traders to "sacrifice" their business with Pakistan for the sake of the "nation", dismissing statements from cotton exporters who said the party's stand would affect the industry. Johar and...

-PTI Washinton: Research compares impact of dung cake burning versus the burning of municipal solid waste on browning of Taj Mahal and on the health of people living nearby. Burning of municipal solid waste in the vicinity of the iconic Taj Mahal is significantly contributing to the discolouring of the world heritage monument, an Indo-American research team has found. The research compared the impact of dung cake burning versus the burning of municipal...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The CBSE wants to ensure that teachers in private schools are not saddled with non-teaching work, a common complaint across the country, and will in coming days ask these institutes for staff details. The Central Board of Secondary Education, the country’s biggest school board, would issue a circular to all the around 16,000 private schools affiliated it to it to give information about the work assigned to the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Those selling bottled water and cold drinks at more than their maximum retail price, including at airports, restaurants and multiplexes, could attract penalty and jail terms, consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Friday. Citing the common experience of consumers, the minister said packaged drinking water is often found selling at 10-20% higher rates at such locations and there are also cases where some of...

A recently released report shows that only a few enterprises belonging to the labour-intensive Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector could take advantage of the 205 number of public schemes (available in October 2015) of various Ministries or Departments of the Government, as listed at the website www.clusterobservatory.in.   (Please click here to access the report on MSMEs and the challenges they face). Prepared by the Foundation for MSME Clusters...