The EC strikes out at paid news, but what it has seen is just the tip of the iceberg It’s getting bigger by the day. If the sheer number of notices sent by the Election Commission to candidates and media houses is any indication, paid news is big news in the assembly elections in Punjab. By the time polling came to a close on January 30, the commission’s media monitoring committees...

Liquor baron Ponty Chadha’s mercurial rise is all ‘Maya’ A reclusive liquor baron may seem like an anomaly in these never-ending good times. But Gurdeep Singh Chadha—better known by the moniker Ponty Chadha—fits the bill. Often called “Mayawati’s financier”, the 57-year-old Ponty has been making large (if silent) waves for the political patronage he enjoys in Uttar Pradesh. Any bottle of liquor sold in India’s most populous state goes through his...

-AP   Efforts by India and the European Union to strengthen trade are threatening India's ability to deliver lifesaving medicines to the world's poorest, analysts say as the two sides push through protracted negotiations on a free-trade pact.  India's prime minister and top EU officials are hoping their summit Friday in New Delhi helps move beyond disagreements over issues like European labor market limits and Indian duties on cars.  But health industry workers and...

-The Telegraph After doctors, teachers from urban areas will now have to serve in rural areas of Assam. Announcing that the process of recruitment of 40, 800 schoolteachers would begin from February 15, education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today said candidates from urban areas would have to serve in rural areas, as villages have more vacancies while more urban candidates passed the teacher’s eligibility test this year. Dispur has made teacher eligibility test...

The Supreme Court today vacated a 2010 Gauhati High Court order that banned recruitment of elementary school (lower and upper primary) teachers in Assam. This will pave the way for recruitment of some 1,00,000 teachers in the state. The high court had on March 5, 2010, restrained the state from recruiting teachers on a petition that challenged illegal appointments of 3,813 (3,147 in lower primary and 666 in upper primary schools) teachers...