The policy deep-freeze and land acquisition woes have resulted in over 500 projects, mostly power and steel, being shelved or put on hold during 2011-12, entailing a total investment of over Rs 5,00,000 crore. According to CMIE estimates, during the year Rs 1,70,000 crore worth of investment projects had been abandoned by project developers, and another Rs 3,30,000 crore worth were stalled on account of various procedural issues. The core sectors, led...

Health activists and cancer patients in the US have pounced on Swiss drug multinational Novartis for the high price of its famous, multi-billion dollar anti-cancer drug Glivec, a development which challenges pharma MNCs' claims of cheap access and affordability for patented drugs. Such protests, which began first in Europe, and have now spread to the US, could make it more difficult for pharma MNCs in developing countries to convince sceptical governments...

The Government of India has formally launched the news Guidelines of the MGNAREGA based on the Mihir Shah Committee report. The news guidelines include many new works under conservation activities and it strengthens the hands of the village panchayats and gram sabhas. However, the list of works does not include the activities under the system of rice intensification (SRI) which encourages scientific method of paddy cultivation with better yield in...

-The Hindu Jairam to write to Prime Minister seeking more coverage The demand for universal pension for elderly persons got a fillip with President Pratibha Patil on Thursday extending her support and Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh deciding to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to restructure the pension scheme to cover more beneficiaries. Ms. Patil made a personal contribution of Rs. 15,000 to the Pension Parishad which is staging a...

After Modi, it's Raghavan's turn to see riots as ‘action-reaction' In its closure report filed in the Zakia Jafri case, the R.K. Raghavan-led Special Investigation Team says Ms. Jafri's husband and former MP Ehsan Jafri was killed because he provoked a “violent mob” that had assembled “to take revenge of Godhra incident from the Muslims.” Ehsan Jafri fired at the mob and “the provoked mob stormed the society and set it...