Bench refuses to stay Karnataka High Court order In a major setback to the UPA government at the Centre, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the Karnataka High Court order for payment of minimum wages to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers and suggested that the government, instead of appearing adversarial, should resolve the issue through a consultative process. The only relief the government secured was...

-PTI Prime Minister manmohan singh's office made its debut on popular microblogging site Twitter on Monday. The new media foray by the PMO comes in the wake of TV journalist Pankaj Pachauri taking over as Communications Adviser to the Prime Minister. "The Prime Minister's work should be in the public domain so that people know that the government is functioning for their benefit," PMO sources said. The Twitter account of the PMO...

-The Economic Times Anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare on Sunday shot off a letter to Prime Minister manmohan singh, asking him to replace the 'weak' Lokpal bill with a "really stringent'' one.  Similar letters, with a few variations, were sent to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, BJP president Nitin Gadkari, his Samajwadi Party counterpart Mulayam Singh Yadav and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati.  These parties are the main contenders in the assembly polls in...

-PTI   The government has decided to give its skill development initiative a "major push" during the 12th Plan Period and set up sector skill councils to prepare standards required for training programmes. The National Skill Development Council (NSDC) which met here yesterday under the chairmanship of Prime Minister manmohan singh also tasked S Ramadorai, adviser to the Prime Minister, to prepare a detailed proposal for mainstreaming the skill agenda in the next...

The smart card versus unique identity number battle between P. Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia will hit the ground tomorrow at Porthapur village in Andaman and Nicobar Islands when the home minister hands out the first tranche of 2.56 lakh resident identity cards. The resident cards are a rival to the unique identity number conceived by the Planning Commission to establish authentic identification for each resident and cut out corruption in...