-DD News Indian Union Cabinet has approved Rs 4,000 crores proposal for multipronged strategy for the prevention and control of Japanese Encephalitis and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. The meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh approved the proposal of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare recommended by the Group of Ministers. The scheme will be implemented in 60 priority districts for a period of 5 years from this year. This scheme will...

-The Times of India Keen to snap out of a policy coma and rev up an anaemic economy, the government is looking to slash " green tape" by making lease extensions simpler, amending restrictions on work beginning on projects where forest land is involved and easing expansion norms for mines. Sifting through highly polarizing arguments, new initiatives aim to reduce points of contention that have often locked ministers in charge of economic...

-The Economist Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. But it is not inevitable, says Zanny Minton Beddoes IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux...

-The Hindu If we are going to buy American, why not adopt the American way of giving local bodies the right to refuse entry to super stores in their area There is the United States of America and then there is the ‘idea’ of USA that exists in the minds of significant portions of the middle classes all across the globe. How this looks in real life varies slightly according to the...

-The Hindu Union railway Minister C.P. Joshi has announced the decision to constitute a Rail Tariff Authority, based on which the next hike in passenger fares and freight rates will be effected. The Tariff Authority is an attempt at insulating the railways from various hikes being effected by the government, including on fuel price, which officials regard as having made the operation of the railways in the current situation unviable. Addressing the Economic...