Controversies surrounding the two real estate projects, the Adarsh Society building in Mumbai and the Lavasa city near Pune, bring to the fore the huge costs of poor enforcement of town planning rules and inept administration of urban development. In the case of Adarsh housing, a 31-storeyed apartment building raised in the Backbay reclamation area and meant for Kargil heroes, the Maharashtra government not only turned a blind eye to...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

There is more trouble in store for South Korean steel maker Posco’s Orissa project. Shoreline surveys have found the state’s coastline to be highly erosive. Worse still, 50%, that is 4.8 km of the 9.3 km coastline along the proposed captive port site at Jatadhari is eroding. This is likely to put a spanner in the works for the South Korean company, which has been insistent on a separate captive...

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal today termed “utterly erroneous, baseless and sensational” the government auditor’s estimate that the alleged 2G scam resulted in a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Sibal gave a detailed explanation of the priorities that drove the telecom policy and the benefits over the years to “the aam aadmi” — something his predecessor A. Raja did not or could not articulate till now. Drawing a parallel with free...

Dispur has hiked the salaries of all doctors serving in rural areas with additional incentives for those posted in the most remote and underdeveloped char or riverine areas of the state. Health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today said the monthly salaries of doctors serving under the National Rural Health Mission has been increased from the existing Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,500. He said similarly the salary of dentists had...