-The Times of India BHUBANESWAR: Even as Odisha continued to feel the potato heat because of the West Bengal government's undeclared restrictions on inter-state transportation of the tuber, the state government on Wednesday formed a taskforce to chalk out a long-term strategy to deal with the issue. The panel, headed by agriculture secretary, will submit an action plan focussing on production, preservation and distribution of potato within a month, food supplies and...

-The Business Standard C Rangarajan, former head of the former Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, answers questions on the latest official poverty estimate by a committee he'd chaired. Edited excerpts of a talk with Indivjal Dhasmana: * Your panel has suggested these poverty lines be delinked from social welfare schemes. What would be the exercise's relevance? Is it of only academic interest? Poverty ratios have already been delinked from various social programmes. The...

-The Telegraph The Congress today slammed the Centre for linking food inflation to increased incomes and changing diets and asked if it intended to scrap its predecessor's welfare schemes that had raised poor families' purchasing power. Ironically, Congress ministers used to cite similar reasons for the rising prices. But spokesperson Randeep Surjewala accused the government of "insulting" the people and said it was a matter of satisfaction and pride that incomes were...

-Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set in motion the first major revamp in decades of the archaic labour laws, part of a plan to revive the flagging economy, boost manufacturing and create millions of jobs. Successive governments have agreed labour reform is critical to absorb 200 million Indians reaching working age over the next two decades, but fears of an ugly union-led backlash and partisan politics have prevented changes to free...

-The Hindustan Times   New Delhi: A group of young engineers have formulated an environment friendly way of reusing compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) used in households at a cost of Rs. 1. Led by engineers Shubham Manocha, 19, and Shivinder Singh Chandok, 20 - students of National Power Training Institute - the project ‘Prajwal' aims at mobilising the Resident Welfare Associations of various colonies of the city to collect used CFLs. The students...