-The Hindu The government’s ill-conceived urban development schemes are threatening the future of Delhi The Delhi Urban Arts Commission was constituted by an Act of Parliament in 1972 with the sole intention of acting as a supra urban body to guide the future development of Delhi. After 40 years of its existence, chaired by a galaxy of bureaucrats and, more recently, famous architects, it is still difficult to evaluate whether it has...

-PTI Employees of public sector banks have gone on two-day nationwide strike today opposing banking sector reforms and outsourcing of non-core activities, affecting operations. Several private sector banks, foreign banks and ATMs, however, continued to operate normally. The strike call was given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine unions of employees and officers of PSU banks. They are protesting against banking sector reforms and unilateral implementation of...

In 2010, Andhra Pradesh witnessed a series of suicides. These were not cases of farmers' suicides—a regular occurrence in the state which continues to be in the grip of an agrarian crisis. The victims in these cases happened to be the poorest of the poor; most of them illiterate dalits and adivasis. The first information reports (FIRs) of the police reveal that most of the suicides were due to coercive...

-PTI Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot today said that all efforts are being made in the state for achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  "Important steps are being taken in the state for achieving the MDGs by the deadline of 2015 through flagship programmes benefiting lakhs of poor and underprivileged people," Gehlot said, inaugurating a symposium 'MDGs in XII Plan of Rajasthan: Integrated and Futuristic Approach" here.  The Chief Minister claimed...

-The Telegraph The Economic Survey — prepared by Kaushik Basu, chief economic adviser to the finance ministry — has some gratuitous advice for politicians like Mamata Banerjee who announced earlier this week plans to amend state legislation that will require co-operative banks to take government permission before seizing mortgaged property while trying to foreclose loans given to defaulting farmers. “The state provides the laws and enforcement to enable people to sign contracts,”...