-The Hindu Bangalore: In a major shift in its lending practice, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has opened a lending window to the corporate sector for construction of warehouses and creation of cold storages and cold chains. NABARD had only been granting soft loans to State governments for social sector projects. Speaking to The Hindu on Monday, G.R. Chintala, Chief General Manager (CGM), Regional Office, Bangalore, said it was...

-The Hindu Gram sabha at Taraimarh adjourned due to lack of quorum as villagers stay away Taraimarh (Chhattisgarh): On a wet and windy Saturday evening nearly 350 km north of the State capital, Raipur, a non-descript village registered a historic victory against Bharat Alumunium Company Ltd (Balco), an affiliate of India focused global miner, Vedanta. While the Dongria Kondhs turned up in large numbers at the gram sabha to emphatically reject Vedanta's...

-The Hindustan Times The Haryana government on Thursday ordered a chargesheet against 1991 batch IAS officer, Ashok Khemka for major penalty under Rule 8 of All-India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules. Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who is the competent authority in disciplinary matters pertaining to IAS officers on Wednesday, approved action against Khemka. Primarily, Khemka has been held liable of administrative misconduct - overstepping jurisdiction in passing orders to cancel the...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A high-level panel has recommended new criteria for measuring the backwardness of states and proposed the devolution of funds to them through an index that identifies Odisha and Bihar as the least developed states and Goa as the most developed one. The committee had been set up by the government amid demands for "special category" status by Bihar and was headed by the then chief economic...

-The Hindu     Governments have ritually abused the latitude granted by the Indian Penal Code and the Constitution to harass, intimidate and arrest scores of writers, journalists and artists It is common knowledge that Article 19 (1) (a) of the Indian Constitution lays down that "all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression"; it is also common knowledge that this fundamental right is not absolute, as the immediately following...