-The Business Standard Consumers say they cannot buy branded FMCG items in mobile phones, customers opt for low-end handsets while retaining brand loyalty Last year, Ashok Das, a farmer-cum-fisherman from the small industrial town of Rishra in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, had promised his younger son a branded television. But last year’s bad crop output and this season’s deficient monsoon made him change his plans and finally settle on a...

-PTI Two hundred miners trapped in West Bengal coal mines have been evacuated, while efforts are going on to rescue 65 others stuck in Jharkhand mines.  265 miners were trapped in various coal mines of state- owned Eastern Coalfields and Bharat Coking Coal in the two states following massive power failure across the country due to grids collapse by 1300 hrs.  "All the 200 stuck inside Sodepur and Satgram mines in Burdwan (West...

-The Hindu Slaps $1.39 billion lawsuit on TAM India and global parent firms Nielsen & Kantar News broadcaster NDTV has sued the country’s only television audience measurement company TAM India — and its global parent firms Nielsen and Kantar — for over a billion dollars in the Supreme Court of New York, accusing TAM of manipulating ratings in return for bribes to its officials. While there have been allegations of manipulation of TAM’s...

-PTI Two decades of economic reforms and drum beating about inclusive growth seem to have failed to change the face of rural India as 10 per cent of the population live on less than Rs 17 a day. According to a government survey released for 2011-12 on household consumer expenditure, "The poorest 10 per cent of India's rural population had an average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of Rs 503.49 per month." Their...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: A special SIT court on Monday sentenced 21 people to life imprisonment for attempt to murder and arson in the 2002 post-Godhra riot of Dipda Darwaza in which 11 Muslims were killed in Visnagar town of north Gujarat. All the victims belonged to the same family.  In addition to the 21 found guilty, M K Patel, the then police inspector of Visnagar and also the first investigator...