-The Telegraph Thiruvananthapuram: The Centre's move to implement an ecology panel's report on conservation of the Western Ghats has provoked a call for a 48-hour civil disobedience agitation by the Catholic Church in Kerala, starting Sunday midnight. The Church claims the K. Kasturirangan report, notified on Wednesday, will hit the livelihoods of farmers living in the "high ranges" - foothill areas bordering the forests - and force them to relocate. Green activists deny...

-Outlook Aizwal: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that the UPA government's policies and programmes for rapid and inclusive growth are showing good results and the country has seen a record average economic growth in the last nine years. "The UPA government's policies and programmes for rapid and inclusive growth are showing good results. We have seen a record average rate of economic growth in the last nine years, which is higher...

-The Indian Express After tasting success with its free bicycle scheme for school-going girls, the Bihar government is planning a freebie in tune with the times - a tablet PC - ahead of the 2014 elections. While other state governments have so far targeted the student community with free laptops and tablets, the Nitish Kumar government is working on an ambitious Rs 8,000 crore scheme to provide tablets to digitally illiterate...

-The Indian Express The rural health cadre will not create two classes of doctors, it will help fill two different needs. The cabinet is pondering the idea of a cadre of mid-level health practitioners, a plan that has been fiercely resisted by medical associations because they worry it will dilute the worth of MBBS graduates. It has also been recently rejected by the parliamentary standing committee on health, for allegedly creating two...

-The Hindu Chennai: Out of 1,550 persons screened for diabetes in a few rural pockets in the city's western suburbs, 78 persons (5 per cent) were detected with diabetes, 191 (12.3 per cent) with high blood pressure and 202 (13 per cent) with high cholesterol levels. Among the 78 diabetics - 36 men and 42 women - eight were aged between 20 and 30. Persons in the age group of 20 to 82...