THE Indian Bureau of Mines, in its Indian Minerals Yearbook–2005, notes that Chhattisgarh has 28 different types of minerals, with coal and iron ore being the most abundant. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in its comprehensive book Rich Lands, Poor People: Is ‘Sustainable' Mining Possible?, says that around 16 per cent of India's coal reserves, 10 per cent of its iron-ore reserves, 5 per cent of its LIMestone...

The day Kumari Selja assumed charge as the Union minister for housing and urban poverty alleviation in the second United Progressive Alliance government, she got an unusual gift: a set of two books from none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The books, The Other Path and The Mystery of Capital, were by eminent Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, hailed as the “poor man’s capitalist”for his work on the informal sector....

EVEN AS BP battles to check the damage caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, India is showing how far it is from recovering from its own worst industrial accident. A group of government ministers appointed to suggest remedies for the disaster in 1984 at Bhopal, in central India, made its recommendations on June 21st. It urged the government to step up its efforts to extradite Warren...

The Lokayukta is the “government’s conscience”, an anti-corruption ombudsman organised at the state-level and born out of a need felt among the country’s statesmen to instill a sense of public confidence in the transparency of the administrative machinery. Legal experts say that the “best and the worst” of the Lokayukta organisation is that the success of the entire mechanism depends solely on the “personal qualities such as the image, caliber, drive,...

Even as the Centre is redrafting the Food Security Bill to ensure availability of food for all, nearly 30 lakh tonnes of paddy — the rice from which could feed around 4 lakh people for a month — have been left to rot in Punjab, with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) refusing to lift the stock. This particular variety of paddy, PAU 201, was developed by Punjab Agricultural University, and...