India Shining: EC orders removal
New Delhi: The Election Commission has ordered the immediate removal of the `India Shining' campaign hoardings and other state-sponsored propaganda advertisements across the country. The Commission said that it has sent general instructions to the Centre and the States that "all hoardings and advertisements which are still on display at the cost of the public exchequer should be removed as soon as possible and compliance reports sent to the Commission." The display of such advertisements was violative of the model code of conduct. Since the issue of new advertisements was prohibited under the code, even continued display of such material violated it.
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Polls will now be in five phases
New Delhi: The Lok Sabha elections will now be held in five instead of four phases. This follows a request from Tripura for postponement of the polls in the State in view of a local festival. The northeastern State will go to the polls on April 22, instead of the earlier schedule of April 20. As for the other States, the original schedule stands. The elections will now be held in five phases — April 20, April 22, April 26, May 5 and May 10. The Election Commission has announced it was advancing the elections to the lone Andaman and Nicobar Islands constituency to April 20 from May 10, following representations that the onset of monsoon may pose a problem.
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Prices of 97 drugs revised
New Delhi: The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) today announced revision in prices of 97 formulation packs based on bulk drugs of insulin, aspirin, vitamins and others. While fixing prices, NPPA has also considered the additional packing material cost towards hologram labelling for preventing faking of drugs. The new prices would become effective within 15 days from the date of notification.
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Steel at cheaper rates for small units
Kolkata: The Government has decided to channelise supplies of steel products to the small-scale sector units through several small-scale industry corporations, owned by the State governments.
According to the government, small and medium scale sector units will first work out their steel demands for a particular period of time and this will subsequently be indented to these state agencies.

The small-scale industry corporations will in turn place the order to the steel companies on behalf of these small-scale units.
The steel supplied to the small-scale players will be cheaper than the market rates by around Rs 1,500-2,000 per tonne. The subsidy will be provided under the JPC scheme. A meeting has been convened by the Steel Ministry on April 7 for this purpose.
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TRAI panel to look into channel rates, revenue sharing
New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), has said that the committee set up to look into the implementation of the conditional access system (CAS) will look into the issue of fixing rates of pay channels, the revenue share arrangement between the broadcasters, multi-system operators (MSOs) and cable operators. The special committee comprising representatives of State Governments and TRAI will be chaired by Secretary (TRAI) and will meet on March 10.

It will suggest the norms for fixing rates for cable subscribers, cable operators, MSOs for individual pay channels, bouquets and distribution of free-to-air channels, suggest regulation regarding rates of cable operators, including periodicity of change of monthly cable charges and suggest the principles for laying down limits as to the extent of bundling of pay channels to be allowed in order to ensure that Cable TV viewers have a genuine choice with regard to selection of pay channels.
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Kochi port okays cut in vessel-related charges
Kochi: The meeting of the board of trustees of the Kochi Port has approved a proposal made by the Chairman to reduce vessel-related charges by 30 per cent with respect to container vessels. The reduction is expected to bring in more traffic and will also encourage the bidders to participate in the international container trans-shipment terminal project. Vessel-related charges in Kochi are among the highest compared to other ports in the region.
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