-PTI Unemployment rate rose sharply in Agra, Ludhiana and Meerut during the five year period ending 2009-10, although overall it has come down in cities and towns in the country, according to a government study. The unemployment rate in Agra rose from 0.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 5.5 per cent in 2009-10, revealed the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on Employment and Unemployment Situation in cities and towns of India. The unemployment...

-Live Mint Not only have Bihar and Odisha grown faster they have also ensured that benefits accrue to the poorest; in Gujarat, growth has bypassed the poor Going by logic, the poor in richer states should be better off than their counterparts living in poorer states. This is especially so when the country is seeing a welcome trend: Income growth in rural areas and poverty reduction has Witnessed unprecedented acceleration. Not necessarily. Not...

-The Economic Times That India has had an excellent monsoon is a given, as is the prognosis that it will more than double agricultural growth from the lowly 1.9% seen in the last fiscal year. The happy tidings on the farm front won't end there. The joy could actually multiply by the last quarter of this fiscal year because abundant rains will benefit the increasingly important winter rabi crop more than...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Left-wing extremism, which afflicts several states, has killed a whopping 14,689 people, including 11,742 civilians and 2,947 security personnel, since 1980. However, the 4,638 fatal casualties on the Naxalites' side were just one-third of the killings carried out by them over the last three decades. The silver lining, however, is that the trends of Naxal violence are showing a steady decline in killings since 2010. As many...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The environment ministry has set up an expert group, as mandated by the Supreme Court, to determine whether hydropower projects along Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers and their tributaries contributed to environmental degradation, an effort to ensure there is no repeat of the Uttarakhand disaster Witnessed earlier this year. Headed by Ravi Chopra, member of National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) and director of People's Science Institute,...