-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Accepting the argument of political parties that poll promises or "freebies" are related to the Directive Principles of State Policy, the Election Commission is considering a pragmatic set of guidelines that would allow freebies as long as they are targeted at the economically and socially weaker sections, religious minorities, women and populations living in remote, border or insurgency/disaster-hit areas. Directive principles are broad policy guidelines considered...

-The Hindu Eminent sociologist Virginius Xaxa will be chairman of committee If UPA-I constituted the Sachar Committee to map the condition of Muslims in the country, on Saturday, UPA-II set up a high level committee on Saturday to prepare a position paper on the current socio-economic, health and educational status of tribals that will also "suggest policy initiatives as well as effective outcome-oriented measures to improve development indicators and strengthen public service...

-The Hindu     Bench issues notice to Centre and 12 States The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and 12 States seeking their response on steps taken to ensure cleanliness in the midday meal scheme and to prevent incidents like the one that occurred last month in a government primary school in a Bihar village, where 23children died after eating contaminated food. The States to which a Bench of Chief Justice...

-Live Mint The absence of genuine competition at mandis and numerous transaction charges are distorting onion prices The joke doing the rounds today is that the spike in onion prices has been a great equalizer, bringing parity between the price of a bottle of beer and a kilo of onion. The humble vegetable has also found pride of place as a gift item to customers at a tyre shop in Jamshedpur,...

-The Hindu The story today is a far cry from the 1960s, when we led the developing countries' fight against the disease Tuberculosis is very much in the news, but for all the wrong reasons - a shortage of drugs; increasing multi-drug and extensive drug resistance (MDR, XDR), making treatment both cumbersome and expensive; total drug resistance (TDR) as a veritable death warrant; popularly used serological tests for diagnosis being declared worse...