In the run up to the next global jamboree on climate change, in the tourism-cum-summitry town of Cancun, Mexico, the government has come out with an Indian view of global warming, based on indigenous research. The upshot of the effort is a much more worrisome portrayal of the challenge of climate change. The Indian studies forecast that mean temperature will rise in India by around 2ºC by 2030, rather than...

It is quite likely that a few weeks from now someone will be knocking at your doors and asking for your fingerprints. If you agree, your fingerprints will enter a national database, along with personal characteristics (age, sex, occupation, and so on) that have already been collected from you, unless you were missed in the “Census household listing” earlier this year. The purpose of this exercise is to build the National...

The two day 43rd Session of the Indian Labour Conference (ILC), the apex national tripartite body that discusses key issues affecting labour and employment and provides policy perspectives and recommendations, concluded in New Delhi today. The Conference was inaugurated by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Tuesday 23rd November 2010. Senior level representatives of the three pillars of the tripartism, Trade Unions, Employers’ Associations and Government, participated in the deliberations...

An amendment to the Land Acquisition Act is being formulated to ensure minimum displacement of people and assess compensation on a scientific basis, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said on Monday. Speaking at a one-day Infrastructure Financing Conference jointly organised by the High Commission of India and the City of London at Mansion House here, the Finance Secretary said, "The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2010, is under preparation, based on the principles...

Rahul Gandhi, the general secretary of India’s Congress party, often says that there exist “two Indias” — one of the rich, and one of the poor. Those two Indias were in evidence a couple of weeks ago, when closely timed events on opposite sides of the planet brought into relief the deep divides that in many ways define this country. In Mumbai on Nov. 7, President Barack Obama told a group of...