-The Telegraph The Planning Commission has accepted a proposal by scientists to create new academic centres for cognitive science, cyber security and other fields to be shared by scholars and faculty from universities across India. The proposal for inter- university centres (IUCs) is among key initiatives in science and technology planned during the 12th Five-Year Plan that covers the period up to 2017, K. Kasturirangan, a member of the Planning Commission, told...

-Outlook The government has approved the National Policy on Information Technology, which aims to make at least one individual in every household e-literate among other objectives, DEITy Secretary J Satyanarayana said today. "The IT policy has been cleared by the Government of India recently and the Policy addresses a number of issues regarding the development of the ICT sector and using it for the growth of the country, not only from the...

-PTI Foreign direct investment in the retail sector is likely to create as many as 10 million jobs in a span of 10 years, making it the largest sector in organised employment, says a report. According to Indian Staffing Federation (ISF), an apex body of the flexi staffing industry in India, FDI in retail can create around 4 million direct jobs and almost 5 to 6 million indirect jobs including contractual employment...

-The Telegraph Patna: Farmers in Bihar have set their sights on foreign funds for a change in their fortune though economists have cast a doubt on it. Ask Nitish Kumar, a farmer of Darveshpura village in Nalanda district, who hogged the limelight a couple of months ago with record production of potatoes. Nitish had no one by his side when he was forced to go for distress sale of the same potato, which...

-The Economic Times With carbon markets at an all time low and prospects of international long-term finance dim, the Planning Commission has suggested reworking the Rs 23,000 crore National Action Plan on climate change. It has reduced the number of missions and refocused them in line with "priorities". In 2008, the government had laid out a national strategy that would address India's development concerns and the challenges that climate change would present....