The re-classification of villages and towns, and the changes this brings to the nation's rural-urban profile, happens every decade. Yet only Census 2011 shows us a huge turnaround, with urban India adding more people (91 million) than rural India (90.6 million) for the first time in 90 years. Clearly, something huge has happened in the last 10 years that drives those numbers. And that is: huge, uncharted migrations of people...

-PTI   Government has spent nearly Rs 42 crore on foreign visits by Union Ministers during the last one year. The information provided in an RTI reply shows that while Cabinet Ministers spent Rs 37.16 crore on their foreign visits, their junior colleagues, Ministers of State, spent about Rs 4.76 crore on these visits bringing the total travel expenditure to Rs 41.82 crore for the year 2010-11. The Cabinet Secretariat has given these...

In the corridors of power in Delhi and beyond, a three-letter acronym has left some of the mightiest politicians and officials befuddled, embarrassed and powerless. The RTI, or the Right to Information Act, which compels the government to share information about its functioning with its citizens on demand, has acquired the reputation of a four-letter word among India's rulers. Its lethal nature was on full display this week - it...

-The Indian Express Unfinished car shells rusting in a deserted factory in India's West Bengal state lie testimony to flaws in a century-old land-acquisition law the government now wants to replace. * Jobs, housing, cash to landowners made mandatory * Costs, project delays to increase - Indian corporates react * Bill to push up costs by 350 pct for big plots - analysts, cos * Bill likely to be passed in December Tata Motors was forced...

This wedding season, anxious grooms from Parsa and Ghatburra, two villages in Chhattisgarh's Surguja district, were offered financial assistance from an unlikely source. Adani Mining Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd, was handing out loans to all those who could prove that the money would be spent on marriage arrangements. “A company official took us to the bank, opened accounts in our names, and gave us cheques for Rs....