Points to plight of city journalists and small-town stringers  City journalists employed on contract basis as well as small-town stringers working for small sums are both victims of the lack of effective trade unionism in the news industry, Harish Rawat, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, said here on Tuesday. Speaking at the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Press Trust of India organised by the news agency’s employees unions,...

The Maharashtra government will amend its Development Control Rules, in a bid to contain criminalisation of realty. It also plans to strictly implement the provisions of Indian Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code to stem the growing nexus between builders and gangsters and easy flow of black money into the sector. "If builders are found guilty, they will be blacklisted. They will be debarred from any contract from the government or...

At a time when other countries are cutting down ethanol admixing with vehicular fuel due to tightening supplies of alcohol, India, oddly enough, is doing the reverse. The Union government has forced the states to raise ethanol doping of petrol from 5 per cent to 10 per cent immediately and has set the target of hiking it further to 20 per cent by 2017, least realising that the sugar industry,...

India's annual food inflation based on wholesale prices rose to 17.4% for the week ended January 16 from 16.81% the week before, according to official statistics released on Thursday. Essential items continued to rule firm, with potatoes dearer by 57.56% over the past 52 weeks, pulses up 46.87%, and vegetables costlier by 10.5%. But prices of onions declined 1.69%. The limited data on the wholesale index released by the commerce...

India on Wednesday decried attempts to divert food grains for bio-fuels. “Diversion of grain for fuel is a dangerous trend,” Commerce and industry Minister Anand Sharma said at the World Economic Forum meeting here. Addressing a session on energy security, Mr. Sharma said diversion of food grains for bio-fuels cannot “subvert” the need for food security. “The cost of food in India has been on a rise over the past year and...