-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 Hindustan Times New Delhi: With general elections due next year, the UPA has drawn up plans to project itself as a business-friendly regime, as investors are side-stepping India following criticism that the government has been unable to push through enough reforms to revive a stalling economy. A white paper on economic reforms, under preparation, lists out moves such as allowing FDI in multi-brand retail. Last week, global ratings agency Standard & Poor's...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government should have calculated the costs of possible retaliation by other states before banning potato export from Bengal, agriculture experts have said. For now, no state has threatened a payback for the ban, clamped despite pleas from the chief ministers of Odisha and Assam after a shortage pushed up potato prices in Bengal. As the Bengal administration grapples with the problem, importers of essential foodstuff have sounded...

-The Hindu "The most important milestone to be set at Warsaw is on climate finance," says Jayanthi Natarajan, Union Environment and Forests Minister, in an interview ahead of the climate negotiations beginning November 11. * What are your thoughts on the view that historical emissions should not play a role in deciding responsibilities under the 2015 agreement? India has consistently held the view that historical emissions are a very important pillar of issues...

-The Indian Express Riot-hit Muzaffarnagar may now be looking at a crisis in its sugar economy. With private mills in the state refusing to start crushing until the Uttar Pradesh government clarifies cane prices, harvesting of crop that should have begun by now has not yet started. A key cane-growing district, Muzaffarnagar is reported to have the highest agricultural GDP in UP. With recent incidents again bringing the district to a boil,...