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India’s union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday tried to quell criticism for his government and blamed the coalition politics for a slow pace of reforms.

He pointed out that it time for the government to take some hard decisions for implementing much needed reforms in the country. He said that he is optimistic that three major reform proposals on pension, banking and insurance will be passed this year.

Mumbai, April 21 - India's foreign exchange (forex) reserves rose by $213.8 million to $293.14 billion for the week ended April 13, after declining by $1.47 billion in the previous week, official data showed.

Foreign currency assets, the biggest component of the forex reserves kitty, rose by $115.1 million to $258.76 billion during the week under review, according to the weekly statistical supplement of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country's central bank.

The RBI did not provide any reasons for the change in foreign currency assets.

The foreign currency assets expressed in US dollar terms include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US currencies such as the pound sterling, euro and yen held in reserve, the RBI said.

A Court of Appeal has upheld a decision by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) to recommend closure of a paediatric heart unit at a west London hospital.

The court said that consultation by JCPCT that led to the closure of the unit was lawful. The appeal began after the Royal Brompton Hospital challenged the way consultations were carried out by the NHS officials.

A new report has said that the number of patients waiting longer for treatment than the 18 weeks have increased in England since the new government was formed.

The report showed that 26,417 people in England had to wait for more than 18 weeks for treatment in February this year compared to 20,662 in May 2010, when the new government took power. The number of patients who were made longer than they should was at 25,823 in January this year.

US telecom carrier, Verizon Wireless has sad that it has added about 734,000 subscribers in the first quarter to its network in the country.

The biggest largest cellphone service provider said that the figure is 16 percent lower than the same period previous year. Verizon recorded a profit of $1.7 billion for the quarter mainly due to revenues from bills that consumers pay for watching videos, surfing the internet or listen to the music through internet on their smartphones or tablets on the company's network.

Software giant, Microsoft said on Thursday that the sales of its flagship product, the Windows operating system increased by 4 per cent in the third quarter.

The company's Windows division recorded a growth in sales of 4 percent from over the previous year to US $ 4.6 billion. The increase was backed by a high demand for licenses for Windows 7. It is the second time in six quarters that the company managed to record growth in the quarter over the previous year.