It is presumed that the industrial development in Bihar is hampered by lack of investments. Is it because of 'unproductive' government policies or an unpredictable law and order situation? And how to increase the flow of investment in the state? In order to find out answers to all such questions and debate these issues, Business Standard Hindi recently organised a roundtable in Patna. The seminar was attended by various small...

If your child can go from a ‘near zero’ learning ability to getting 95 per cent in mathematics and from a state of malnutrition to WHO-approved standards of health, chances are that you will not find the Naxal ideology all that attractive. I was in the Naxal heartland of Bastar to review the learning skills of children in 300 schools who were being educated by the Naandi Foundation when news...

Tribals angry with activists fighting for human rights of Naxals while ignoring poor ‘adivasis’ threw rotten eggs and tomatoes at Magsaysay award winner Medha Patkar and Sandeep Pandey as they reached Dantewada town in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday. While Medha, being a woman, did not face much humiliation, her companion Pandey was pulled down from the motorcycle and given a hiding. He was pushed around and asked why the activists had...

Bt brinjal is a genetically modified version of an eggplant that is injected with a protein that makes it immune to pests Kochi: There’s a new player in the fight against Bt brinjal, a village panchayat in Kerala that is seeking to preserve a traditional variety of eggplant. As part of the plans of the village-level elected legislative body, around 8,000 households in the Mararikulam North gram panchayat in the coastal...

There has been no let-up in the rising trend of food prices. For the week that ended on November 28, the wholesale price index for food articles rose 19.05 per cent over the corresponding period last year. A week earlier, it was at 17.47 per cent. Indeed, arresting the price rise of essential commodities has been a challenge to the government for quite some time now. Some recent developments have...