-First Post Two different newspapers, and two contrasting views on how to deal with giving brands unpaid publicity. This morning, The Times of India carries a story on a survey which has found Bangalore as scoring the lowest among seven cities in motorist behaviour. This is what The Times of India reports: That the motorists in Bangalore don’t seem to care for pedestrians has been a subject of intense debate for long. The...

The Vidarbha region of Maharashtra which has gained notoriety for its farm suicides, is also reporting a high incidence of child deaths. Data compiled under the Right to Information (RTI) Act shows that in Yavatmal district alone 565 children below five died due to various causes between January and September 2011. In addition, the district reported 489 still births for the same period. Yavatmal is second only to Amravati district which...

Drug smugglers and third-world dictators laundering ill-gotten wealth through secretive banking systems in tax havens is an anachronistic image from crime novels. Leveraging US' remarkable success in compelling tax havens to block terrorist financing, the G20/OECD have successfully persuaded tax havens to improve tax transparency and participate in an international regime of information exchange.  All tax havens have committed to OECD standards for tax transparency and are executing Tax Information Exchange...

Rising trends in malnutrition among children under six here and in other cities have prompted the Maharashtra government to introduce an Urban Malnutrition Mission from next month, official sources said. A quarter of children below six years in the city weighed at anganwadis are underweight, according to the latest monthly progress report (MPR) of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). Non-governmental organisations point to a severe crisis of primary health...

NEW DELHI: It could be a second innings for special economic zones, especially those held up for years, with the commerce department proposing fresh tax concessions and a cut in the minimum area requirement to a quarter of the present specifications. The department has suggested that any zone that is not built around the identified 40 million-plus cities and state capitals would be eligible for duty benefits on capital investment for...