The draft Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, or MMDR Bill, includes a crucial provision to share the wealth of mining — 26 per cent of the annual profits — with people who live near the projects. But industry wants this profit-sharing clause dropped. The Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (Fimi) says it will breed lazy people, who will only drink and beat up their women. The Confederation...

It’s a silent epidemic that we’ve never been able to put a finger on. In debates on food security, the issues of hunger and malnutrition have always been add-ons. But for millions, getting the next meal is the difference between life and death. Four-year-old Akash Sahariya can barely stand up. His bleached hair, distended belly and matchstick arms are harbingers of certain death that awaits him. He is the fourth...

Janardhana Reddy insists he is not a king. No, no, no, he protested, as a servant trotted across the courtyard to deliver a cup of cooled water. Men with machine guns stood outside. An architect waited to discuss the new mansion, while another man hovered nearby, sitting in the grass. “He’s the state minister of health,” Mr. Reddy said of the man in the grass, who stood up, made a little...

Four days after a government-appointed expert panel recommended that Vedanta Resources should not be allowed to go ahead with its bauxite mining project in the Niyamgiri hills of Orissa, the Congress announced that its general secretary Rahul Gandhi would be visiting Niyamgiri on August 26. In a report to Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, the expert panel headed by N C Saxena, a retired IAS officer who is a...

Orissa will move the Supreme Court against a high court order disapproving its grant of permission to South Korean steel major POSCO to prospect for iron ore in Sundergarh district, an official said on Saturday. A bench of the Orissa High Court July 14 set aside the permission granted to POSCO last year for prospecting iron ore in over 2,500 hectares in the Khandadhar hills in Sundergarh. "We have decided to appeal...