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...
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Reactors for Jaitapur have been tested: AEC ex-chief by Srinivas Laxman
MUMBAI: Former Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Anil Kakodkar has stated that the French-made Areva European pressurized reactors, which India plans to import for the Jaitapur nuclear power project in Ratnagiri district, were tested. "It is wrong to say that they were untested reactors. They are based on previous reactor experience," he asserted, while pointing out that other countries were constructing similar reactors. He was addressing nearly 400 students and...
More »Is India's population policy sexist? by Soutik Biswas
Can the promise of a car or a mixer grinder help keep India's population in check? Well, that's what health authorities in the northern state of Rajasthan apparently believe. They are offering a cheap car, among other things, as a prize in an attempt to sign up some 20,000 people to meet an ambitious sterilisation target. Time will tell whether this turns out to be another gimmick or an innovative incentive. But...
More »Latest employment trends from the NSSO by CP Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
The results of the latest NSSO large survey on employment and unemployment provide crucial evidence on the pattern of inadequate job creation in this phase of high economic growth. This edition of MacroScan provides an initial analysis of the results. No sooner were the results of the 66th Round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (relating to data collected in 2009-10) released, than they became the subject of great controversy. Surprisingly,...
More »India’s soil crisis: Land is weakening and withering by M Rajshekhar
In his fields, Badhia Naval Singh , a farmer tilling 8 bighas of land in the Bagli tehsil in Madhya Pradesh, has been seeing something strange for a while now. Earlier, if he pulled out a tuft of grass, he would see earthworms . "Ab woh dikhna bandh ho gaye hain (they don't show up any longer)," says the 45-yearold . Also, he says, when he ploughed earlier, the soil...
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