-PTI   The CPI(M) today asked the Manmohan Singh government whether it had a "dual policy" on FDI in the retail sector.  "In Parliament the Centre said it would not move forward in FDI till a consensus evolved through discussions. In Davos Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told a Walmart representative that it had only pressed the pause button. Has the Centre a double policy on FDI in retail?" CPI(M) Politburo member BRInda...

-The Times of India Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Sunday said it would be difficult to implement the proposed food security bill without adequate funds to boost agricultural output. Pawar, who was not fully aligned with the Congress on the food security legislation, argued that his grievance was that the total budgeted provision for entire agriculture ministry was Rs 20,000 crore and subsidy, as of today, was Rs 65,000 crore which might...

-Express News Service   Concerned over the increasing instances of senior civil and police officers resigning at the last minute to contest polls, the Election Commission of India has asked the government to BRIng in a “cooling off period” clause for government officers who contest elections. According to sources, many senior officials were found to misuse their positions to nurture their prospective constituencies before finally quitting their jobs to contest elections. In a letter...

-PTI India's human rights record in 2011 got a thumbs down from a leading global rights group for its "failure" to protect vulnerable communities and rapped the government for custodial killings, police abuses, including torture. Human Rights Watch also criticised the Indian government for its inaction in repealing the controversial armed forces act and for remaining silent on the "gravest abuses" in countries like Syria. In its World Report 2012, Human Rights Watch...

School girls in BRIght red uniforms troop down the slope in groups of threes and fours in Koppa, the fertile sugarcane town in southern Karnataka’s agricultural district of Mandya. A teenage boy on a motorcycle does the dim-and-dip with his headlights, the equivalent of a wink, as he passes the girls on his way up the slope in what seems to be a strut on a motorcycle. “Television and mobile phones...