Even as the government races against time to procure enough jute bags to store grains in the face of record procurement , gunnysack traders are saddled with massive unsold stocks. A look at the godowns of some traders in the national capital alone shows there is no shortage of jute bags in the country. While the central government has placed an order for four lakh jute bags to be imported from...

The Andhra Pradesh biodiversity board wants to claim royalty for the Brahma or Brahman bull, a species taken from Ongole and bred widely in Brazil, the United States and Australia for over 100 years. The bull, scientifically known as Bos indicus, is in great demand as it is known to be resistant to foot and mouth disease and for its flavourful meat. Biodiversity board chairman R. Hampaiah, back recently from a...

A probe panel of the road ministry has recommended a CBI investigation into allegations of fraud against private contractors involved in the Lucknow-Muzaffarpur highway project. The inquiry committee, instituted by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, supported findings of the World Bank Institutional Integrity Unit report, which alleged fraudulent practices and graft by private contractors involved in the Lucknow-Muzaffarpur highway project. The committee, formed in April by minister CP Joshi, recommended...

-The Business Standard Still waiting for a crackdown on antibiotic over-prescription According to a recent study in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, the drug-resistant bacterial strain known as New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1, or NDM-1, has spread to 40 countries. This is quite remarkable, given that it was only discovered in 2008 in the UK, among patients who had recently been hospitalised in India. The “superbug”, as it is commonly known, is...

By all outward appearances, the controversial Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012, has been shelved. The Congress leadership has already distanced itself from the contents of the Bill, stating that it was solely advanced by Meenakshi Natarajan, the party's Lok Sabha member from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh. The first-time MP, who is a close aide of party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, refused to comment on the Bill...