Crucial issues like agriculture, tribal development, water management and power reforms would top the agenda of the nation's highest policy-making body -- National Development Council (NDC), headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- when it meets on Saturday.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Saturday urged the government to constitute a joint parliamentary panel to look into alleged corruption in the national rural job guarantee scheme.

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a fixed four-year tenure for Cabinet Secretary, a move that formalises the extension given to incumbent K M Chandrasekhar, the country's seniormost bureaucrat.

Gurpreet Singh Gabi was elected the president of the Chandigarh Territorial Youth Congress in the elections held on Thursday. He defeated his nearest rival Govind Khattar by a margin of 23 votes. Five other office bearers were also elected.

India should allow private firms to mine coal to plug supply shortages and boost power generation key to propelling Asia's third-largest economy to double-digit growth rates, a top government advisory body said.

AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi's mission to strengthen internal democracy in the Congress is causing winds of change in the composition of the Chandigarh Territorial Youth Congress.

NCP leader, Vidhya Chavan, appointed last week as the state chief of the party women's wing, has demanded a cap on profit margins in all businesses, including construction. Her demand comes at a time when the Congress-NCP government, apparently under pressure from the builders' lobby, has favoured diluting the powers of a proposed regulator for housing.

A parliamentary Standing Committee has recommended the withdrawal of the Road Safety and Traffic Management Board Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on May 4.

A consensus is emerging between the states and the federal government to launch a nationwide goods and services tax (GST) on 1 April 2011, the head of the government's panel on GST said on Wednesday.

The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has now began preparing for its next target - the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections scheduled in 2012.

The Shiv Sena is at it again. The party has given the government one month's time to ensure signboards of all commercial establishments, including banks, are in Marathi.

The Reserve Bank of India's monetary stance will depend on whether it perceives inflation as stemming from excessive liquidity or due to supply constraints, the country's top civil servant said.

India may start using new wholesale price index (WPI) series from next month, Industry Secretary R.P. Singh said on Tuesday.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee called BJP leaders L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley to a lunch meeting on Monday to elicit the BJP's support for the goods and services tax (GST) regime that the government is planning to roll out from the next fiscal year. The shift to "dual" GST - which will subsume all indirect taxes into a central GST and a state GST - will entail a constitutional amendment, for which the support of the principal opposition party is crucial.

Key Indian industrial sectors have yet to respond to the government on how tariff cuts proposed at global trade talks would affect them, weakening negotiators' chances of success, the trade secretary said on Tuesday.