Even at this rate India might fail to meet the millennium development goal on sanitation In April last year when a UN report said more Indians had mobile phones than toilets, it pointed to a major miss in the millennium development goal on access to sanitation in the country. The message was clear at the South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN), the highest inter-governmental forum to discuss sanitation in the subcontinent,...

The finance ministry has ruled out a fresh tax amnesty scheme, saying that no such proposal was on the table. Ministry officials told Parliament's Standing Committee on Thursday that the issue of a new tax amnesty has not even been discussed, scotching the speculation suggesting that one was being mulled. The officials said that they did not know how this started. Members of the Standing Committee asked the government to use India's...

Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, will make a decision in the next week that could define the future of the country: whether to approve a $12 billion South Korean-owned steel plant, the largest potential foreign direct investment ever on the subcontinent. The plant, proposed by South Korea's Posco, has been in the works for years. It already has been cleared by the environment ministry, which Mr. Ramesh runs, and endorsed by...

Faced with a massive public outcry and fierce opposition from tribals, the government has, in a landmark move, decided to give tribals and other affected populations a share of the profits made from exploiting mineral resources from their land. The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday finalised the contours of the draft for a new mining bill, which makes it mandatory for mining companies to...

Inspired by India’s “Green Revolution”, Malawi has sought Indian assistance in its “Greenbelt initiative” aimed at raising agricultural output. The southeast African nation is looking to India to tap its huge uranium deposits. Malawi is also negotiating to sign Double Taxation as well as Investment Promotion and Protection agreements with India. “Our main aim is to get India’s participation in our Greenbelt initiative to increase our farming capacity,” visiting Malawian Trade and...