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New Delhi: Prof. K.V. Thomas, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has directed NAFED and NCCF to intervene in the market immediately to keep the onion prices under check. Outlets of both the agencies in Delhi will sell onions at the rate of Rs. 20 per kg. The State Governments are also being requested to take similar steps for market intervention through their agencies.

India has just emerged from a major political crisis, which could have turned into a veritable disaster. At its centre was an attempt by Mr Anna Hazare and his core-supporters to set up a confrontation between Parliament and the people on the Lokpal Bill. Had Parliament not come into the picture just in time, and had violence broken out, India would have sunk into horrific disorder. This would have spurred calls for draconian measures, which would have further inflamed the situation.

The civil society members are not the first critics of a government to face official probes into their past. The most celebrated victim of the government’s wrath in recent years was the website, Tehelka.com, following its expose in 2001 of fraudulent deals involving the then defence minister, George Fernandes, and BJP president, Bangaru Laxman, who was caught on camera accepting a bribe. For its pains, the company was “ruined”, as the Wikipedia claims, because the Atal Behari Vajpayee government let loose the police and tax authorities against it.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is extremely difficult to pack the first 100 days in office with so many controversial and unpopular decisions. But that is exactly what the United Democratic Front (UDF) Government has managed to do!

New York: The United Nations agricultural agency today called for greater efforts bring the food crisis in the Horn of Africa under control, saying that famine conditions had spread to a sixth area in Somalia, putting an estimated 750,000 people in the country at risk of starvation over the next four months.

An Asia-Pacific regional trade policy course for officials began on 5 September 2011, with the Indian Foreign Trade Institute’s WTO Studies Centre as a partner. WTO chief Pascal Lamy was in Delhi to open it.

New York: The leaders of two of Somalia's semi-autonomous regions today committed to a peaceful settlement of their dispute and adopted a four-point plan to ensure that hostilities between the two territories do not recur, the United Nations political office for the country said.

New York: With support from the United Nations, Iran today became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to phase out metered dose inhalers — used to treat asthma and other pulmonary ailments — and based on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bangladesh may boost the bilateral relationship, but there is less likelihood of an agreement on sharing of waters of river Teesta being signed.

India’s public sector banks have made huge strides since the days of nationalization. They now handle unrecognizably large deposits compared with the pre-nationalisation days; they have far greater resilience in terms of capital base and own funds; they are offering varied products to their customers; and, the public sector banks handle no less than 80% of all banking transactions in the country.