-The Times of India After much confusion and protests, new cooking gas norms for weeding out duplicate and bogus connections appear to be finally working. Over 30,000 Indane customers alone surrendered their second connections last week, a senior oil ministry official told TOI on Monday. The official estimated the total number of customers who have surrendered connections in the region of over 50,000, considering that Indane - marketed by IndianOil - covers...

-Outlook An Odisha minister today dubbed as impractical direct electronic cash transfer of subsidies to beneficiaries in backward regions. "How can it be possible when a large number of people in Odisha do not have bank accounts?" Odisha's Food minister P K Deb questioned. "The basic objective of the public distribution system to arrest hunger among the poor will be defeated if the beneficiaries are provided cash instead of cheap food," the minister...

-The Telegraph When the going gets cold, the comrades will get going. In the winter chill of December and January, leaders of the four Left parties, including CPM general secretary Prakash Karat and his CPI counterpart Sudhakar Reddy, would go from house to house to collect signatures. Their target: five crore signatures in favour of a universal public distribution system (PDS) to ensure food security for the poor and also the relatively affluent. While...

-The Hindustan Times The UPA government's ambitious unique identification or Aadhaar project would result in saving of about Rs. 1,10,000 crore by 2020, around 58% of expenditure of major public welfare schemes, a Planning Commission study released on Saturday said. The Prime Minister's Office had given April 2014 as the deadline for disbursing cash transfer through the UIDAI platform for all major government schemes. A cost benefit analysis done by the National...

-The Telegraph An outcry against the LPG policy at the day-long Surajkund Congress conclave today forced Veerappa Moily to assure the party of some relaxation on the cap of six subsidised cylinders. As most speakers disagreed with the cap and stressed that it could impact the party’s poll fortunes, the petroleum minister said: “We are already examining the matter. I will consult the Prime Minister and the finance minister and see how...