Ahead of its battle with dalit czarina Mayawati, the Congress-led Centre has made it mandatory for all central bodies to make at least 4% of their annual purchases from small scale industries owned by dalits and tribals. The decision, a leg up for developing entrepreneurship among SCs/STs, came as part of the new public procurement policy cleared by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday which mandates Union ministries/PSUs to make 20% of...

consumers to be given time to comply with Ministry order The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has brought in an amendment to its Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Order 2000 making the Unique Identification Number (UID) under the Aadhaar project must for availing LPG refills. The move is aimed at removing multiple connections and those availing cylinders in third party name and to clean up the LPG consumer...

-IANS   The European Union (EU) has registered India's Darjeeling tea as a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), that seek to protect product names from misuse and imitation. It is the seventh non-EU product receiving the protected status, following one from Colombia and five from China, the EuAsiaNews reported. Darjeeling tea has been added to over 1,000 names of agricultural products and foodstuffs protected as PGI in the EU, the European Commission, the EU's executive...

One week from now, the United Nations estimates, the world’s population will reach seven billion. Because censuses are infrequent and incomplete, no one knows the precise date—the US Census Bureau puts it somewhere next March—but there can be no doubt that humanity is approaching a milestone. The first billion people accumulated over a leisurely interval, from the origins of humans hundreds of thousands of years ago to the early 1800s. Adding...

The much-awaited National Food Security Bill will be introduced in the winter session of Parliament incorporating some major changes recommended by the National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Union Minister of State for consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas told The Hindu on Sunday that the council proposed coverage of the food security scheme from the present 45 per cent to an estimated 63 per cent...