Gosikhurd was sanctioned in 1983 and meant to irrigate 2.5 lakh hectares in Vidarbha As Manikrao Gedam sits outside his three-room house, he wonders how he has benefited by giving up his 10 acres for the Gosikhurd irrigation project at Bhandara in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region. For that matter, he wonders what anyone has gained from it. Today, he has nothing else, but the house in a resettlement colony; his sons are unemployed; and...

-The Indian Express   Rich countries must stop lecturing developing countries and accelerate their own efforts to cut emissions There is no shortage of people telling India what to do on low-carbon growth, but there is a shortage of understanding of what India is doing. Even the UNDP in its recent Asia Pacific Human Development Report urges emerging economies like India to do more for climate change. If one appreciates what India’s emissions are...

There are major issues at stake in the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development to be held on 20-22 June. Yet governments of developing countries have not given adequate importance to the run-up to the conference. As has happened in the climate change negotiations, the outcome draft now under negotiation shows a concerted move to rewrite the terms of global environmental governance. There is an attempt to push through the decidedly...

-The Hindu From identification of fewer than targeted families to not lifting adequate ration supplies from godowns to non-submission of utilisation certificates, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has found several anomalies in the Public Distribution System and functioning of the Department of Food Supplies and Consumer Affairs of the Delhi Government. In its report for the year ended March 31, 2011, the CAG has stated that a...

-PTI Planning Commission, which is mired in a controversy over what constitutes the poverty line, has spent a whopping Rs 35 lakh for renovation of two toilets in New Delhi, an RTI reply has revealed. The Commission, which came up with a controversial poverty line figure of Rs 28 per day for an individual, has spent Rs 30 lakh for the renovation of the toilets on the lines of Indira Gandhi International...