-The Times of India MUMBAI: Around 25,000 tribal students have been roped in to welcome Congress presidentSonia Gandhi, who will launch a rural health project for children in Palghar on February 6. But parents of students from 13 villages in the taluka have decided to boycott the function and keep their children away to protest against the lack of basic amenities like roads in their localities. Sonia will launch a National Rural...

-AFP Delegations from some 140 countries agreed on Saturday to adopt a ground-breaking treaty limiting the use and emission of health-hazardous mercury, the U.N. said, though environmental activists lamented it did not go far enough. The world’s first legally binding treaty on mercury, reached after a week of thorny talks, will aim to reduce global emission levels of the toxic heavy metal, also known as quicksilver, which poses risks to human health...

-The Hindu With a single stroke, the government has made over 3.5 crore existing post office accounts ready for its new Aadhaar-linked cash transfer scheme. The accounts, which belong to MGNREGA workers over the country, were originally to be used only for receiving wages under the rural employment guarantee scheme. However, the government has now woken up to the potential of using the ready-made network of accounts to directly transfer benefits such...

-The Indian Express Raipur: The Chhattisgarh Police has found that Maoists are at an advanced stage of developing indigenous propellers and rocket launchers, which not only means that their strategic strength is rising but also that they pose a serious threat to aircraft in the Bastar region. On Friday, for the first time, they managed to bring down an IAF helicoper, forcing it to crash-land in Sukma district of the state. There...

-The Indian Express The Planning Commission has criticised the Railways for failing to attract private sector participation in its multi-crore infrastructure projects and has called for overhauling its management to allow “relevant experts” to be part of its decision making process. In its comments to a recent Cabinet note moved by the Railways to promote participatory models for rail connectivity and capacity augmentation, the commission argued that for the past two years...