-PTI Environment Ministry has constituted a high-level Working Group headed by eminent space scientist and Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan to examine the Western Ghats ecology expert panel report "in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion". The nine-member Group will examine the Madhav Gadgil committee report released recently "in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion keeping in view the comments received from the concerned state governments, central ministries, stakeholders", the Ministry said. The panel will...

-PTI Clinical drug trials in India led to the death of 1144 people in 2010 and 2011, the government today said. The number of people dying during such trials also include 1106 people whose death could be attributed to diseases like cancer, terminal illness or various unrelated causes which is also known as Serious Adverse Event (SAE) of death, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told the Rajya Sabha. "The number...

-PTI Employees of public sector banks have gone on two-day nationwide strike today opposing banking sector reforms and outsourcing of non-core activities, affecting operations. Several private sector banks, foreign banks and ATMs, however, continued to operate normally. The strike call was given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine unions of employees and officers of PSU banks. They are protesting against banking sector reforms and unilateral implementation of...

-The Hindu A day after the Union Cabinet approved the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood & Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2012, the National Association of Street Vendors of India organised a meeting at Jantar Mantar on Saturday and hailed the decision with the hope that Parliament would now pass the Bill in its current session. Association national coordinator Arbind Singh said, “The struggle of street vendors has yielded result. We have...

-The Times of India  The labour ministry has written to the finance ministry recommending that the minimum monthly pension for members of the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) be raised to Rs 1,000 per month. Who will fund the additional Rs 539 crore per year that this will cost, the government or workers, however remains a fraught issue. The EPFO currently has 35 lakh pensioners as its subscribers, of whom 7 lakh...