New Delhi, Feb. 5 : UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has said that it is shameful that children are being tortured in India. Her statement comes in the backdrop of the incident of a Dalit girl being beaten by police in Etawah.

Speaking at a function in New Delhi on Thursday to give away the National Child awards, she said the country needed to implement child protection laws very rigorously.

New Delhi, Feb 5 : Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has agreed with Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee''s previous statement that India has not yet received any official response on the Indian dossier on Mumbai attacks given to Pakistan.

"There is no confusion. Both External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and I have said that we have not received any response to the dossier given to Pakistan as yet," Chidambaram said on Thursday.

He ruled out any confusion on the issue in the government.

New Delhi, Feb. 5 : Commerce Secretary G K Pillai on Thursday revealed that trade between India and the United States has grown by 25 percent in the last two years.

Speaking at the first India-USA Plastics Industry Summit 2009, Pillai said exports between India and US grew at 11 percent whilst non-oil imports stood at 25 percent.

Although certain sectors are affected amid financial crisis, but overall, the trade balance has been in favour, said Pillai, adding that in the last three months alone India has received Foreign Direct Investment worth seven million dollars.

New Delhi, Feb 5 : The Union Cabinet has accorded ex-post facto approval to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India, Brazil and South Africa
(IBSA) on Cooperation in the field of Human Settlements Development which has been signed between the IBSA countries on the October 15, 2008 during the 3rd IBSA summit.

The IBSA dialogue has its genesis in the discussions between the Heads of State and Government of the IBSA countries at the G-8 meeting that took place in Evian, France in 2003, and following ongoing trilateral consultations, where the Foreign Ministers of the respective countries met in Brasilia on June 6, 2003 and the launching of the IBSA Dialogue Forum was formalized through the adoption of the "Brasilia Declaration".

New Delhi, Feb 5 : The Union Cabinet has approved the National Policy on Safety, Health and Environment at Workplace to address the issue of securing health and safety of workers in the country as envisaged in the Constitution.

It provides general guidelines for all stakeholders such as Governments, inspection authorities employers, research and development institutions, educational institutions, etc. for developing a safety culture and environment at all work places.

New Delhi, Feb 5 : The Union Cabinet has approved a proposal of the Income-tax Department to establish a Centralized Processing Centre (CPC) at Bangalore for processing of all electronically filed returns in the country.

The CPC will enable the Department to process the returns and issue refunds expeditiously. It will encourage more tax payers to resort to electronic filing of returns.

The creation of the new center entails an estimated expenditure of Rs. 255.46 crores over a period of five years.