The Bihar Government's plans for a mega power plant at Nabinagar in Aurangabad district went for a toss as an agitation by a large mob of farmers turned violent on Saturday, resulting in the torching of an empty passenger train. The farmers were agitating against the acquisition of 1871 acres of private land by the State Government for setting up 3300 MW power project, on grounds that the State Government had...

The Union government has set up a Group of Ministers (GoM) to examine the problem of paid news and suggest policy measures to combat it, according to informed sources. It will be headed by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The other members are: Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Law Minister Veerappa Moily, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Human Resource Development Minister Kabil Sibal. It is likely to...

The Centre is expected to announce a new pharma policy in the next few months. The ministry of chemicals and fertilisers has discussed with concerned stakeholders and will seek further inputs on the matter before placing the draft note to a group of ministers (GoM) for final touches, chemicals and fertilisers minister MK Azhagiri said on Wednesday. Hinting this at a conference on ‘Intellectual Property Rights: Challenges and way forward for...

With the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka going to get a tiger reserve status, the Soligas living there face imminent eviction.NEVER before have the tigers of the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary burned so bright, either in popular imagination or in administrative priority. With the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests approving “in principle” the status of a tiger reserve for the BRT sanctuary, the endangered cat has taken...

Heavy security bandobast is in place for the third phase of panchayat elections which will take place tomorrow in 61 blocks of 20 districts, with many of the areas considered rebel strongholds.This phase covers as many as 999 panchayats where 40,471 candidates are in the fray for 12,011 posts of gram panchayat members, mukhiyas, panchayat samiti members and zilla parishad members. The electorate strength is over 32.58 lakh.“Polling parties have...