A Cabinet panel headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will decide on Wednesday if the government should spend nearly Rs 15,000 crore more to duplicate an ongoing exercise to capture biometric data. The government had earlier authorised the Registrar General of India under the home ministry to create the National Population Register, a task that required RGI to collect biometric data of nearly one billion people and get them an...

-PTI   The International Labour Organisation (ILO) today warned there is an "urgent challenge" to create 600 million jobs over the world in the next decade as one in three workers worldwide are either unemployed or living in poverty.  According to the annual report on global employment by the ILO, the world faces the "urgent challenge" of creating 600 million productive jobs over the next decade in order to generate sustainable growth and...

The Jaipur Literary Festival, a giddily chaotic celebration of the written word set on the grounds of a Rajasthan palace, ended in misery and embarrassment today, with the organizers bowing to pressure from local security forces and scotching plans for Salman Rushdie to “appear” at the festival, finally, by video link. Rushdie had already been forced to cancel plans to come to Jaipur after he had received intelligence reports—bogus intelligence,...

-The Financial Express Corporate fraud investigation body SFIO will have the power to carry out arrests once the new Companies Bill is passed by Parliament, Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily said today. "SFIO shall have the power to arrest in respect of certain offences of the Bill which attract the punishment for fraud. Those offences shall be cognisable and the persons accused of any such offence shall be released on bail subject...

-Express News Service   The stay order issued by court over reserving 25 percent seats in schools for students from economically weaker sections (EWS) has delayed the implementation of the Act in the coming academic session. While the quota is mandated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act, there is no clarity on who will foot the bill. The ambiguity over fees is a major concern for private school managements. “The unaided...