India, like other Asian countries, has focused its climate change adaptation strategies on rural and urban areas while neglecting the urban fringes, say experts. Peri-urban areas are characterised by haphazard, accelerated expansion and are farthest from basic urban services and infrastructure, according to United Nations-Habitat’s ‘The State of Asian Cities 2010-11’. By 2020, of the projected 4.2 billion urban population of the world, 2.2 billion will be living in Asia, many...

-The Times of India Responding to a PIL filed by a retired Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer pointing at the complete absence of constitutional or statutory sanction for the agency, the Karnataka high court last week sought an explanation from the Centre, giving it time until March 30 to issue an Executive order justifying IB's existence. The IB was formed on December 23, 1887, by the then British secretary of state as a...

-The Times of India After being dormant for nearly a year, the H1N1 virus has made an appearance in Mumbai. A six-year-boy from Mulund tested positive for the virus that claimed several lives during and after the 2009 pandemic, and still continues to haunt neighbouring Pune. The virus had remained 'underground' for the better part of 2011, but suddenly struck Pune in March this year killing five and affecting 95 people in...

The Supreme Court dismissed the government’s review petition in the Vodafone tax case on Tuesday, affirming its January ruling that put overseas transfers of shares outside the Indian tax net. The review petition and last week’s budget proposals seeking retrospective changes have revived the uncertainty over tax laws, according to government officials, the Planning Commission and businesses. If Parliament passes the budget in its current form, the judgement in the Vodafone case...

-The Economic Times   The Supreme Court has declined to reconsider its ruling that the tax authorities had no jurisdiction to tax Vodafone's offshore acquisition of its Indian mobile unit, handing what could be a pyrrhic victory to the telecom major. The tax demand, government officials familiar with the case said, could be revived once the provisions in the Union Budget seeking to tax overseas deals are approved by Parliament later this...