-The Indian Express Imphal: After some 80 years of unregulated mining, mostly coal and LIMestone, the northeastern state of Meghalaya is set to adopt a mineral policy that aims to organise the lucrative sector and boost its performance. The state cabinet approved the Meghalaya Mineral Policy 2010 last month and it is due to be introduced in next month’s state assembly winter session for approval. The state government was forced to act...

-The Telegraph Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh elections appear to have turned a straight fight between the induction cooker and “pricey” LPG. The Congress, led by five-time chief minister Virbhadra Singh, was looking the clear favourite till incumbent Prem Kumar Dhumal unveiled a new voter sop in the final rounds of campaigning. The BJP chief minister offered free induction cookers to tide the people over the cooking gas price hike brought about by the...

-The Hindu The Union Cabinet has cleared major amendments in the law relating to construction workers that would benefit over 88.10 lakh of them. Talking to The Hindu here after the meeting, Union Labour & Welfare Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said the salient features of the amendments include removing the clause that construction workers should have worked a minimum of 90 days to register with the labour welfare boards set up in various...

-Outlook Mumbai: The CBI, probing January 2010 murder of RTI activist Satish Shetty, today conducted searches at the offices of IRB Infrastructure Developers LIMited, a company which was recently in news over its links with BJP chief Nitin Gadkari. "Searches are being conducted at four premises of IRB in Pune," a senior CBI official said on condition of anonymity without disclosing details. A year before he was killed, Shetty had lodged a complaint...

-Down to Earth Rice cultivation has led to waterlogging and soil salinity in Haryana’s Jhajjar district CASTE-BASED khap panchayats of Haryana are usually in the news for passing regressive and, often, controversial orders in the name of honouring social customs. But this year in January, the Jhakkar khap panchayat of Jhajjar district gave a rather unusual order in the larger interest of the farming community. It ordered that all the 36...