-The Indian Express The export-import policy for farm products needs to be consistent and predictable Sal seeds are obtained from Orissa-based tribals for money that would not compensate them for even the cost of a bus ride to the state capital Bhubaneswar. The produce is, however, valuable as it is converted to sal seed butter, used in Europe by the chocolate industry. But one of the world’s fastest-growing chocolate markets, India, does...

-Outlook Altogether 1.8 million children have been affected in the floods and struggling daily to meet their basic needs such as food, water, medicare and education during the past three months in Assam, as per an estimate of an internationally active NGO. "Out of the total affected population of 4.89 million, the number of children was 1.8 million and many of them were affected twice," 'Save the Children' Chief Executive Officer Thomas...

-Outlook Hazaribagh (Jharkhand): A non-governmental organisation's persistent efforts to stop prescribing diclofenac medicine by veterinary doctors to treat illness in cattle has helped increase vulture population in Hazaribagh. Thanks to the efforts, the population of vulture, declared an endangered species worldwide, to jump five fold in this forested region. From a mere 60 or so, the vulture population in Hazaribagh has climbed to 300-plus, the convenor of the NGO Neo-Human Foundation, Satya Prakash,...

-Outlook Mumbai: Concerned over the loss the state exchequer may suffer due to allocating free houses to slum dwellers till 2000, the Maharashtra government is mulling over framing a policy whereby the slum dwellers will have to pay for the cost of housing. "We had taken an unfortunate decision of giving free houses to slum dwellers. It is now difficult to uphold that plan. We are planning to bring some policy that...

-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...