-The Times of India LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh (UP) government on Wednesday decided to ban gutkha, which is paan masala mixed with tobacco, as per the order of the Allahabad high court order and the Food Security Act passed by the parliament. However, The order will come into effect from April 1, 2013. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said that six months time has been given to find other source of employment for...

-The Telegraph The Manmohan Singh government has decided to aggressively highlight the Supreme Court’s opinion on allocation of natural resources to debunk the CAG’s coal report that presumed losses of Rs 1.86 lakh crore. Although the government had given a restrained formal response yesterday, senior ministers P. Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid and Kapil Sibal were fielded again today. The ministers carefully avoided attacking the CAG directly but the essence of their argument was that...

-The Telegraph The government today said there was no ban on issuing fresh cooking gas connections but there was a three-week break, pending elimination of duplicate connections and update of software to take into account the six-a-year subsidy cap. State-owned oil firms are carrying out a nationwide exercise to eliminate multiple connections at the same address. Only one LPG connection is allowed at one address while the rest are being disconnected. “When a...

-The Telegraph A panel of Union ministers today finalised a market-based drug pricing policy that public health experts say cold-shoulders concerns expressed by the health ministry and threatens to legitimise high prices for medicines. The policy finalised by the group of ministers (GoM), led by Sharad Pawar, will apply to 348 essential drugs to cover virtually all common ailments — from painkillers and antibiotics to asthma medications and drugs against high blood...

-The Indian Express With the Tata Motors fiasco still reverberating across India Inc and political circles across the country, Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal has initiated steps to welcome another automaker by handing over land - this time a foreign one - albeit not for production but for a stockyard. The move is surprising also as Maruti was gung-ho about land in Narendra Modi's Gujarat and not much was known about negotiations in...