Some good news awaits the agriculture sector in Bihar. Around 150 potential investors from all over the country met in Patna today, with an aim to invest in the untapped food-processing sector in state. The motive behind the summit was to plan investments in the food-processing sector by boosting the market and database intelligence system. Enhancing crop productivity to ensure availability of the raw material required for the industry and promotion...

Orissa will move the Supreme Court against a high court order disapproving its grant of permission to South Korean steel major POSCO to prospect for iron ore in Sundergarh district, an official said on Saturday. A bench of the Orissa High Court July 14 set aside the permission granted to POSCO last year for prospecting iron ore in over 2,500 hectares in the Khandadhar hills in Sundergarh. "We have decided to appeal...

India's growth story in a crisis-hit world has been globally applauded. Still, the prime minister did well not to use his Independence Day address as a mere occasion for back-patting. This isn't yet "new India" where growth's gains percolate to every citizen. Not only must structural nuts and bolts be fixed before we get there, the economic blueprint itself needs a sharper reformist orientation. To its credit, the UPA has...

There is an interesting debate on food security and we should get the Planning Commission’s perspective on this. But as I write this, the Planning Commission Web site still does not have the mid-term appraisal, so Yojana Bhavan must still be polishing it. This column has, over time, taken the position that the food security programme is really important and a country growing as fast as India simply cannot ignore...

JHABUA, India — Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds. His son, Jogdiya, is 2 and weighs only eight. Landless and illiterate, drowned by debt, Mr. Bhuria and his ailing children have staggered into the hospital ward after falling...