-Bloomberg It wasn't the Gettsyburg Address -- unless it's poker faces we're comparing. Future historians aren't going to be parsing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech for hidden meanings, and rhetoricians won't be delighting in the majesty of its style and the compression of its effects. It inflamed no passions, as did Mitt Romney's words about the "47 percent," and asserted no big idea or thesis, unless there was one contained in the...

-The Telegraph A one-member committee formed to fix responsibility on individuals for “derogatory” political cartoons in some NCERT school textbooks has refused to blame anyone, highly placed sources have told The Telegraph. The committee, set up by the human resource development ministry under its former secretary B.S. Baswan, has found that officials and experts had followed set guidelines and procedure in preparing these books and had no “ill intentions”. “It said the books...

-The Indian Express With the Tata Motors fiasco still reverberating across India Inc and political circles across the country, Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal has initiated steps to welcome another automaker by handing over land - this time a foreign one - albeit not for production but for a stockyard. The move is surprising also as Maruti was gung-ho about land in Narendra Modi's Gujarat and not much was known about negotiations in...

-The Hindustan Times In response to the widespread protests and the nation-wide hartal last Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the nation on Friday and tried to explain why these decisions had become inevitable. The thrust of his argument was, “We need a revival in investor confidence, domestically and globally.” For this, the current high fiscal deficit must be contained and, hence, the hike in the prices of diesel and cap on...

-The Economic Times The central government has banned states from allowing sale or export of iron ore by companies granted mining leases for own steel production. "The entire ore produced in the mining operation (of captive mines) shall be used exclusively for own consumption in iron or steel making and cannot be either sold in India or exported to other countries," the mines ministry said in an order issued on September...