-PTI A blanket ban on manufacture, sale, storage and use of plastic bags with stiff penalty against violators including imprisonment up to five years will come into effect in New Delhi on Friday. The government has now imposed the ban as per provision of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, under which violators could face imprisonment up to five years and fine of up to Rs. 1 lakh or both. "The ban on plastic...

-The Telegraph The Union cabinet today approved a controversial drug pricing policy that had been opposed by the health ministry, the finance ministry and public health policy experts who fear it will legitimise high prices of medicines. A government source said the cabinet has cleared the drug pricing policy that health experts suspect will determine caps on prices of 348 drugs through a formula based on market prices of drugs rather than...

-The Economic Times The government must decontrol sugar, lift curbs on trade in molasses and allow proper markets to function in this sector. Ill-informed would-be saviours of farmers like Gen V K Singh oppose the move. They only serve to fatten liquor barons like the late Ponty Chadha and depress farm incomes. As an article by Nidhi Nath Srinivas (ET, November 22) points out, wily politicians use control to make the sugar...

-The Economic Times It has never happened since Independence. May be not even in the last 1,000 years what happened during October 2011-September 2012. India exported 10 million tonnes of rice, valued at around $6 billion, becoming the largest exporter of rice, replacing Thailand and Vietnam, generally the two largest exporters of rice. This is now known to many in rice circles. But what is little known is that in 2011-12, India also emerged...

-Outlook Jabalpur: Against the backdrop of growing opposition to acquisition of land for a power plant in Katni district, the Madhya Pradesh government today filed an undertaking in the High Court stating that it will not go ahead till the final hearing on a PIL in this regard is held. The single bench of Justice R S Jha has fixed the final hearing of the case on November 27. Farmers from Bujbuja and...