-The Indian Express Having completed over five months at the Centre, the BJP-led government faced a barrage of allegations during a discussion at the World Economic Forum, where social activist Aruna Roy, earlier a member of National Advisory Council under Sonia Gandhi, charged the government with not doing much for the poor, taking away freedom of speech and breaking down social harmony. Speaking at a session moderated by Nik Gowing of BBC...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday recast the almost defunct Prime Minister's council on climate change, a move seen as an effort to handle climate issues pro-actively from the top. The revamped body is to meet soon to take key policy decisions ahead of the Lima climate conference next month. Environmentalist Sunita Narain has been dropped from the body - an apparent reflection of the Centre's discomfiture with...

-The Hindustan Times The government plans to put up coal mines for bidding by private steel, power and cement companies and introduce changes in the law to enable commercial mining in the future, signalling its intent to fully open the sector to private players. The new auction-based system will replace the earlier controversial policy of allotting coal blocks based on recommendations of a panel of bureaucrats, which the Supreme Court had struck...

-Outlook Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh government today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Union Power Ministry, launching the 'Power for All' scheme from October 2 in the state. Andhra Pradesh is the third state in the country after Delhi and Rajasthan where the scheme is being launched to ensure 24x7 electricity supply to all sectors (excluding agriculture). The state government also signed an MoU with NTPC for setting up a 4000 MW super...

-The Business Standard Ministers in the Narendra Modi government have been busy making presentations on their 100 days of work. But what these presentations do not mention is that decisions by ministers have been few, with plenty of papers and files moving to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which is increasingly emerging as a centralised clearance point, even for routine and ordinary issues. Though policy paralysis was a term used freely...