Ahmedabad, Gujarat's largest city, has won the prestigious Sustainable Transport Award 2010. The city, with a present day population of about 5.2 million, was founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah to serve as the capital of the Gujarat Sultanate. The award was handed over to the Ahmedabad city officials in the presence of Indian Urban Development Secretary M. Ramachandran at a function on the sidelines of the 89th annual meeting...

A section of the media seems to be mighty impressed with Bihar’s miraculous (11.03%) average annual growth during the 2004-05 to 2008-09, supposedly akin to that of Gujarat (11.05%) but is there a catch in this stunning statistics? (See the graph below). While the media has quoted the Gross State Domestic Product at factor cost (at constant 1999-2000 prices) as provided by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO), but the corresponding...

The Government is eliciting views of concerned ministries on the Ranganath Misra Commission report, which recommended 10 per cent reservation for Muslims and five per cent for other minorities in government jobs and favoured Scheduled Caste status for Dalits in all religions. The responses would be discussed by the Union Cabinet before a decision on implementing the report is taken, Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said. "We are sending it...

Without policy efforts to deal specifically with issues such as reduced incomes and unemployment, the global economic crisis will be far from over. FOR most economic commentators, 2010 begins on an optimistic note. Just a year ago, there was much gloom about the world economy. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression had broken out in full fury; asset markets in the United States, Europe and then most developing...

A landless labourer dies on Christmas day after going without food for five days. Neither he nor his wife, who was a job card holder under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, knew they could demand work or avail of unemployment benefits as a right It was a death that could have been avoided. Kishen Singh, a 45-year-old landless labourer, died of hunger in Champakheda village in south Rajasthan. What...