Wants limit to be raised to 49% Keen to enter the growing insurance sector, U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett on Friday wondered if India would raise the FDI limit in the sector to 49 per cent. The U.S.-based company is keenly watching the developments regarding further opening of the sector to foreign investment. Mr. Buffett, whose group Berkshire Hathaway recently entered the Indian insurance market, called on IRDA Chairman J. Harinarayan here and...

The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament. The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power....

Forty years ago Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan helped rescue the world from growing famine and a deepening gloom over the future of food supplies. Today, public policy projects itself as pro-farmer but it does it half-heartedly, complains Swaminathan. M S Swaminathan, member of the National Advisory Council and father of the Green Revolution says the government's allocation for agriculture is insignificant. Doesn't the Union Budget reflect a new focus on agriculture?...

N.K. Singh, the Janata Dal (United) Rajya Sabha MP, “voluntarily” recused himself from participating in the proceedings of the parliamentary public accounts committee looking into the 2G spectrum allocations. His decision was made public today by PAC chairperson Murli Manohar Joshi after the panel questioned the editors of Outlook and Open magazines, which published the transcripts of the Radia tapes some months ago. Singh’s conversation with corporate lobbyist Niira Radia figured in...

Outlook, Open editors to testify, question of N.K. Singh recusal open The Public Accounts Committee examining the CAG report on the 2G spectrum allocation affair seems to have made up its mind to examine the players featuring in, and connected to, the Radia tapes. On Monday it will start with two editors, Vinod Mehta of Outlook and Manu Joseph of Open, who were among the first to publish transcripts of tapped conversations...