-The Asian Age As one listened to finance minister Arun Jaitley deliver his third Budget speech, the overwhelming impression that was sought to be created was along anticipated lines. Here was a government whose heart was bleeding for the hapless farmer toiling in the fields, the agriculturist whose livelihood has been all but destroyed by two successive monsoon failures. Here was an administration whose representatives were concerned about the “curse of...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: The Naveen Patnaik government has decided to extend the cheap lunch scheme - Aahar - to all the district headquarters and 16 select urban local bodies from March 1. The government now plans to provide the cheap meals to nearly one lakh people across the state in the first phase, sources said. The move will coincide with the launch of centenary celebrations of Biju Patnaik. Final touches to the plan...

-Hindustan Times The fight against air pollution extended to nearby towns in NCR on Saturday as the Supreme Court-mandated Environment Protection Control Authority (EPCA) directed seven districts across Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to stop the registration of diesel autos, taxis and buses with immediate effect. In a move to phase out diesel-run public transport facilities from NCR, the statutory body directed all authorities concerned in the seven districts to stop issuing fitness...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that it would soon join hands with West Bengal, Karnataka, Assam and Tamil Nadu to seek review of its May 13 judgment banning photos of political leaders, except President, prime minister and Chief Justice of India, in government advertisements. In an affidavit filed before the court denying any violation of the May 13 judgment, the information and broadcasting...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Shortly after a controversy erupted over government's proposal to investigate on every message that an individual will send via WhatsApp, SMS, or Google Hangouts, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology clarified in a draft that social media websites and applications will be exempted from the purview of the Encryption Policy. According to the draft posted by Deity, there are certain categories of encryption products that...