-The Pioneer The super-vision mission team of World Bank, with the help of District Poverty Initiatives Project, appreciated the self-confidence, vision and awareness of rural women trying to earn their livelihood. Through innovative initiative of the project, team members spread awareness about the solar energy lantern and mobile charging stations among the rural people. The establishment of solar energy lantern and mobile charging stations is being done through regeneration committee set up...

-The Economic Times India will have a normal monsoon this year, says the Met office. This is good news, even though the forecast does not rule out some slack during the second half of the season. What matters finally is the distribution of rainfall across space and time rather than the aggregate percentages. However, a good monsoon is only one side of the story to have a strong farm sector. Reforms are...

Drug smugglers and third-world dictators laundering ill-gotten wealth through secretive banking systems in tax havens is an anachronistic image from crime novels. Leveraging US' remarkable success in compelling tax havens to block terrorist financing, the G20/OECD have successfully persuaded tax havens to improve tax transparency and participate in an international regime of information exchange.  All tax havens have committed to OECD standards for tax transparency and are executing Tax Information Exchange...

Industry reacts with caution to the grant of a compulsory licence to Natco, but cancer patients welcome it and hope for many more. THE first compulsory licence (CL) issued by the Indian patent office, to the local drug manufacturer Natco Pharma Ltd to sell the generic version of Bayer AG's anti-cancer drug Nexavar, has led to varied reactions. The landmark decision has also raised concerns about the outcome of cases...

Consumers may have to pay substantially more for pulses, oilseed, and rice in the coming months if the government accepts the recommendations of an expert panel to increase farm-gate price of these commodities by up to 30%, further stoking food inflation. The Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), under the ministry of agriculture, has recommended a 25% rise in the floor price of cotton, 16% rise in paddy, 30% rise...