-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...

-First Post Predictably, the recommendation by an experts’ panel appointed by the Supreme Court  - that trials of genetically modified (GM) crops should be halted for 10 years – has stirred a hornet’s nest. Such a moratorium would include ongoing trials and the court rejected it. This follows on the heels of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture’s 492-page report published in August which asked for the banning of GM food crops...

-The Times of India The income tax department's '360 degree profiling' had resulted in former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia's contacts with several bigwigs coming to light. She may have fallen off the radar but the government plans to strengthen the mechanism with finance minister P Chidambaram initiating a pilot project with the FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) to integrate data on all suspicious transactions with the '360 degree' database. Financial transactions of hundreds...

-The Economic Times What are the chances that a chicken infected with bird flu will land on your plate? Zero. What are the chances that a bird flu infection will increase the price you pay for chicken and eggs? 100%. A virulent and deadly infection called avian influenza or bird flu is present in our country. The virus usually affects wild fowl which then infect chickens. The virus can survive for...

-Outlook The cap on subsidised LPG has the UPA regime worried Something Cookin’     There’s definitely going to be a relook at the six-subsidised-cylinders cap     Fear that LPG could cause a replay of the “onion impact” on 2014 polls     Pressure from all parties for increasing number of subsidised cylinders     Central Government keen that states too share burden of extra cylinders      But that could be tricky when discussing Centre-state revenue-sharing Cylinder Pricing     Subsidised cylinders...