-The Telegraph New Delhi: The capital's babus are feeling wanted. At last, a government seems to care about their "happiness", "satisfaction" and "contribution". A recent government circular prods civil servants to do voluntary social service for "internal happiness". Another requests each soon-to-retire official to write a 1,000-word paper on his or her "outstanding" contribution - for their own "satisfaction" and to inspire junior colleagues. They must, however, restrict themselves to personal innovations that...

-The Hindu Business Line The Centre has adopted a pragmatic approach to cooking gas subsidies The reintroduction of the direct benefits transfer scheme for the supply of cooking gas, after its withdrawal in March this year, is a welcome signal that subsidy targeting is back on the policy agenda. Unlike its UPA avatar, cash transfers will now be based on LPG consumers providing their bank account numbers, rather than Aadhaar numbers, to...

-The Indian Express It took the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) six years, 18 drafts and a prod from the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to finalise the Guidelines for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) this August. Three months on, it is yet to notify the rules that would allow it to collect from domestic and foreign companies 0.1-1 per cent of their ex-factory gross sales of products using biological resources and traditional...

-The Indian Express Last week, India and the US reached an understanding on working out a "permanent solution" to the issue of public stockholding for food security purposes at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The deal is seen as a breakthrough, ending the impasse that had stalled the implementation of a landmark Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) hammered out at the WTO's ministerial conference in Bali last December. * What is this deal...

-The Business Standard The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, like its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) predecessor, seems to be failing on suo motu disclosures under the Right to Information Act (RTI). The department of personnel & training (DoPT) had last month issued an official memorandum directing all central ministries and departments to upload replies to RTI applications and first appeals on their respective websites from October 31. This had...