-The Telegraph New Delhi: The capital's babus are feeling wanted. At last, a government seems to care about their "happiness", "satisfaction" and "contribution". A recent government circular prods civil servants to do voluntary social service for "internal happiness". Another requests each soon-to-retire official to write a 1,000-word paper on his or her "outstanding" contribution - for their own "satisfaction" and to inspire junior colleagues. They must, however, restrict themselves to personal innovations that...

-The Indian Express It took the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) six years, 18 drafts and a prod from the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to finalise the Guidelines for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) this August. Three months on, it is yet to notify the rules that would allow it to collect from domestic and foreign companies 0.1-1 per cent of their ex-factory gross sales of products using biological resources and traditional...

-Economic and Political Weekly The current regime seeks to reform labour laws with the understanding that these reforms will improve industrial growth and expand the possibilities of enterprise. However, there is already ample evidence from within India that this obsession with reforming labour law, particularly in the way the government has done it till now, will not take us any closer in creating more jobs or a healthy industrial sector. These...

-The Hindu To address climate change, India has committed itself to a 20-25 per cent reduction in intensity of carbon emissions by 2020, but the international community will want more U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have just signed a historic bilateral accord on climate change and clean energy cooperation in Beijing. This accord will have impacts in the run-up to the Paris Conference in December 2015 when the...

-The Hindu CABinet announces relief, rules out MSP HUBBALLI (Karnataka): The State CABinet on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of a minimum support price (MSP) for onion while announcing a compensation of Rs. 9,000 a hectare for crops damaged due to rains in Chitradurga, Davangere, Gadag, Dharwad and Bellary districts. This has come on the heels of growers protesting crashing prices of their produce. A macro view of market scenario shows that fluctuations...