-Live Mint Cabinet clears proposal to give loans at 7% interest rate, and 4% if SHGs repay loans within the stipulated period The federal cabinet has cleared a proposal to give loans to women self-help groups (SHGs) at 7% interest rate, cheaper than the existing 11.5-14%, bringing the cost of loans on a par with those given to farmers. SHGs that repay loans within the stipulated period will be eligible for loans at...
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Who decides what we eat?-Devinder Sharma
-Tehelka The new biotechnology Bill will allow biotech firms to tamper with our food In March, US President Barack Obama signed the HR 933 continuing resolution - popularly known as the Monsanto Protection Act - that effectively divests the federal courts of their constitutional power to stop the planting or sale of genetically modified (GM) seeds and crops regardless of the health and environmental consequences. In other words, whether you like...
More »Many a hurdle on RTE path-Skand Shukla
-The Hindu The Right to Education (RTE) Act turned three on March 31, 2013. It is certainly a short period to examine its efficacy, yet it is enough to give us a fair idea of the hurdles that are being faced and have to be tackled to get positive results. Most of these hurdles are attitudinal. The services of retired teachers are mostly sought for imparting "special training" to out-of-school children...
More »An ecosystem to save, or squander-Madhav Gadgil and Ligia Noronha
-The Hindu Instead of opening a debate on the Gadgil panel's report on the Western Ghats, the government has chosen to sideline and replace it with another by an alternate group This is a challenging time in India's development history where a number of tenets of environmental governance are being questioned by the imperative of growth. Environmental governance in India is under assault, and is thus in need of both fresh thinking,...
More »FDI in retail is a boon, says Supreme Court-J Venkatesan
-The Hindu In a relief to the Centre, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the government's proposal to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail trade (MBRT) saying the move did not suffer from any unconstitutionality, illegality, arbitrariness or irrationality. A three-judge bench of Justices R.M. Lodha, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph said "consumer is king and if that is the philosophy working behind the policy then what is wrong...
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