Facing criticism over project delays, the government has decided to get cracking and set up a dedicated forum to remove bottlenecks such as coal linkages and environmental and defence clearances that hold up projects.  Top government officials told TOI that following the meeting of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade & Industry last month, the department of industrial policy and promotion has been asked to identify projects and remove bottlenecks in...

Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia has asked the government to take "appropriate action" against at least 20 members of the country's top income tax tribunal who are on the CBI's radar for having allegedly 'outsourced' writing of judgments to private parties. Justice Kapadia is understood to have conveyed his displeasure to law minister Salman Khurshid over inaction on the issue since 2008, HT has learnt. Khurshid met the CJI earlier...

The government, the largest owner of landed property in the country, is preparing a comprehensive land sale policy to raise revenues and check corruption in government-owned property deals. The finance ministry will shortly move a cabinet note for bringing in a new uniform policy on 'land alienation' by government agencies, with an eye on removing discretionary powers of individual ministers and bureaucrats, said a government official. In big cities, large tracts...

After allowing swapping of organs, India is working on another landmark step in organ transplantation: a single apex national organization that will procure and distribute human organs. Union health ministry is setting up the autonomous National Organ Procurement and Distribution Organization (NOPDO) at the Centre and 10 State Organ Procurement and Distribution Organization (SOPDO) under the country's new National Organ Transplant Programme (NOTP). Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, West Bengal, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh,...

-The Telegraph The Union health ministry plans to initiate a process to make tuberculosis a notifiable disease, compelling all private doctors nationwide to keep local health authorities informed about their TB patients. A senior health official said the notification would mean private practitioners would have to inform health authorities about patients who show up with symptoms for the first time and patients treated earlier who may have developed drug-resistant TB. “This is not...