The Haryana government on September 10 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to set up an ethanol plant in Panipat with an outlay of over Rs 900 crore.

The initiative at village Bohali with a proposed capacity of 100 kilolitres of ethanol per day will manage crop residue and prevent straw burning before the upcoming paddy season, an official release said.

The MoU was signed by Director,

New Delhi: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has discovered a hoard of 254 copper coins of medieval period within the Khirki mosque compound here during the conservation of the monument, said Ministry of Culture on Wednesday.

The mosque built by Khan-i-Jahan Junan Shah, the prime minister of Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351-88), lies on the southern periphery of the village Khirki, the ministry said in a statement, adding it was believed to be one of the seven mosques built by the latter.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has prohibited the manufacture, sale or distribution of 328 fixed dose combinations (FDCs) for human use with immediate effect. It has also restricted the manufacture, sale or distribution of six FDCs, subject to certain conditions.

Earlier, the Central Government had, through its notifications published on the March 10, 2016 in the Gazette of India, prohibited 344 FDCs under Section 26 A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Subsequently, the Government had prohibited five more FDCs under the same provisions.

However, the matter was contested by the manufacturers in various high courts and the Supreme Court of India.

Drugs Technical Advisory Board view
In compliance with the directions given by the apex court in its judgment of December 15, 2017, the matter was examined by the Drugs Technical Advisory Board constituted under Section 5 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 which furnished its report on these drugs to the Central Government. The Drugs Technical Advisory Board recommended, among other things, that there was no therapeutic justification for the ingredients contained in 328 FDCs and that these FDCs may involve risk to human beings.

New Delhi: The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal for the complete electrification of Indian Railways in the next four years, reducing dependance on imported fossil fuel and saving revenue for the national carrier.

The move will cost the government ₹12,134 crore, rail minister Piyush Goyal said after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).

The Scheme is aimed at ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce as announced in the Union Budget for 2018.Briefing media in New Delhi, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said, the step is a major boost to the pro-farmers initiative of the Government.

Radha Mohan Singh said, the new Umbrella Scheme includes the mechanism of ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers and is comprised of Price Support Scheme, Price Deficiency Payment Scheme and Pilot of Private Procurement and Stockist Scheme.

This is a step aims at protecting the farmers’ income which is expected to go a long way towards the welfare of farmers. The Cabinet also decided that participation of private sector in procurement operation needs to be piloted so that on the basis of learnings the ambit of private participation in procurement operations may be increased.

The government has already increased the MSP of kharif crops by following the principle of 1.5 times the cost of production. It is expected that the increase in MSP will be translated to farmer’s income by way of robust procurement mechanism in coordination with the State Governments.

Union Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances is organizing a two-day regional conference on 'Good Governance with Focus on Aspirational Districts' at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh today.

There will be 5 Technical sessions in the 2-day conference. 13 presentations will be made in 4 sessions of day one. Department of Administrative Reforms and Madhya Pradesh government are jointly organizing the conference where delegates from 12 States and two Union Territories will participate.

The conference is an effort to create a common platform to share experiences in the formulation and implementation of best practices in citizen-centric governance and improved public service delivery through e-Governance, transparent, accountable and citizen-friendly effective administration. The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances has organized 28 such Regional Conferences till date.

Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday launched a web portal 'Rail Sahyog', a platform for the corporates and PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) to contribute to the creation of amenities at Railway stations through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds.

The companies desirous of contributing can register their requests on the portal which will be processed by Railway officials. Based on the principle of first come first serve, the requests will be shortlisted and selected ones will be intimated to deposit the funds with Railways agencies like RITES, RAILTEL and so on. The nominated agency will get the work executed thereafter.

New Delhi: The Election Commission Tuesday withdrew the ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) option from ballot papers of the Rajya Sabha and the Legislative Council polls following a Supreme Court directive.

On 21 August, the apex court had said that NOTA will not be applicable as a ballot option in the Rajya Sabha polls. NOTA could continue to be an option in direct elections such as the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud has set aside the Election Commission’s notification allowing the NOTA option in the ballot papers for the Rajya Sabha polls. It had questioned the poll panel’s notification and said that NOTA was meant to be exercised by individual voters in direct polls.

In an order issued to all state chief electoral officers, the Election Commission said in view of the verdict, “The NOTA option will no longer be applicable in the Rajya Sabha election and the Legislative Council election.”

From now onwards, the column for NOTA will not be printed in the ballot papers for these elections, it said.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Monday asked all scheduled commercial banks with over 10 branches to appoint an internal ombudsman (IO). The central bank has, however, excluded regional rural banks (RRBs) from appointing ombudsman.

“The IO should examine customer complaints which are in the nature of deficiency in service on the part of the bank that are partly or wholly rejected by the bank. As the banks shall internally escalate all complaints, which are not fully redressed to their respective IOs before conveying the final decision to the complainant, the customers of banks need not approach the IO directly,” the RBI said. The implementation of IO Scheme, 2018 will be monitored by the bank’s internal audit mechanism apart from regulatory oversight by RBI.

The scheme was introduced to strengthen the internal grievance of banks and to ensure that the complaints of the customers are redressed at the level of the bank itself by an authority placed at the highest level of bank’s grievance redressal mechanism so as to minimise the need for the customers to approach other fora for redressal, the RBI said.

Bihar and Nepal are now connected by bus. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday flagged off the first bus service between Bihar and Nepal.

The service will link Bodh Gaya and Patna in Bihar to Kathmandu and Janakpur in Nepal. "The bus service will strengthen the relations between India and Nepal," Nitish Kumar said.