There will soon be a new set of glass doors at Krishi Bhavan. The newly elevated Cabinet Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh plans to bring the doors — a signature element of his interior décor right from his early days at the Commerce Ministry — to his new office. Over the last two tumultuous years at the Environment Ministry, those doors have symbolised the transparency and accessibility he claims...

  THERE is money on offer, but the farmers of Halligudi, a hamlet of 5,500 people in Karnataka's Gadag district, are hardly happy at the prospect of 3,382 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) of farmland being acquired for a Rs.32,336-crore steel plant south of National Highway 63, which runs between Karwar and Bellary. The plant is to be set up by the Indian subsidiary of the South Korean steel major Posco...

In contrast to the 1990s, when age-old matters of identity drove electoral politics, it appears that development-related issues such as land acquisition and law and order will play a critical role in the contentious campaign for the UP elections due next year. While this can be attributed to the BSP’s “sarvajan” agenda, it also signals the impact of the market economy and the need to attract private investment, which has...

Devas Multimedia has approached the International Court of Arbitration (ICA) seeking restoration of its contract with Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) commercial arm Antrix which was terminated in February after allegations of wrongdoing emerged over the allocation of S-band spectrum. In February, the UPA government scrapped the controversial contract between Antrix Corporation and Bangalore-based Devas Multimedia for the lease of space segment in S-band. The government had said that it could...

By exposing its lesser arm, is the petromin hiding bigger sins? Petro Fallout     * Murli Deora, who as petroleum minister sought the CAG audit and sanctioned a CVC probe, offers to quit his ministerial post     * CBI action reinforces CAG draft report findings blaming DGH for oversight in implementation of production-sharing contracts     * Unease in market, as yet another CBI probe into charges of DGH having favoured RIL in its...