The Environment Ministry's clearance of projects such as Posco, Jaitapur and Lavasa will cause havoc in our gravely endangered environment. EVEN the worst pessimist could not have imagined that the January 31 order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) approving the South Korean-origin company Posco's steel project in Orissa would be as bad as it actually is. Construction of the Rs.54,000-crore steel plant, its captive power unit and private...

Agriculture, which had dragged down growth during UPA's first term, is now helping the GDP numbers shine. Good monsoon has helped drive the growth expectations comfortably over 5 per cent, adding some new shine to the economy. According to Advance Estimates, the government expects that the 8.6 per cent growth of the economy during the current fiscal will be powered by agriculture growing at 5.4 per cent, a big jump over...

The Union Ministry for Rural Development has set up a committee to consider afresh the suggestions made by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) to strengthen the process of social auditing of expenditure under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and check corrupt practices. “Old game” Civil society leaders charge that the Ministry and the bureaucracy are at their old game of endlessly delaying the process by...

Regulation in India's microfinance sector aims to address feckless borrowing and reckless lending – but will the new restrictions entrench poverty, rather than end it? One of the many crushing burdens for India's poor bear is debt; unable to make ends meet, they turn to traditional moneylenders. They are willing to extend credit, but at unconscionably high rates – sometimes exceeding 80%, and keeping borrowers in lifelong penury. Popular cinema and...

The late Rajiv Gandhi famously, or infamously, once claimed that only 15 per cent of the funds allocated to welfare proGrammes ever reached the intended beneficiaries. The rest leaked enroute, entering the pockets of an assortment of intermediaries. This is a thought that the Union finance minister must always remember, especially when he sits down to allocate funds for an assortment of subsidies and some of the high-profile spending proGramme...