A senior government official told reporters here on Thursday that Posco might shift to Karnataka, which was making active overtures to the Korean company. This gives a new twist to the ongoing tussle between the Ministry of Environment and Posco. The Ministry had recently asked Posco to stop work in Orissa, where the company has been trying to start operations for many years. Asked about the delays and Posco's predicament, the official said...

The latest Human Development Report, or HDR, (2010), marking its 20th anniversary, is both remarkable and useful. Remarkable because it brims with intellectual confidence, born out of a sense of vindication over the “conceptual brilliance and continued relevance” of Mahbub ul-Huq’s original human development paradigm set out in the first sentence of the 1990 report — “People are the real wealth of nations.” The idea of human development, which, through...

Every afternoon at about four, a slight woman named Runi slips out of the cramped, airless room that she shares with her husband and their sixteen children. She skirts the drainage ditch in front of the building, then walks toward the pile of hardened dung cakes that people in this slum on the edge of the northeastern Indian city of Patna use for fuel. Dressed in a bright-yellow sari shot...

According to the UN Human Development Report 2010, a higher percentage of women in Pakistan feel they are treated with respect than compared to Indian women. The Report titled “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development” is a flagship study produced annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It was released at UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday, marking its 20th anniversary. The first UNDP Human Development Report...

Striking workers at Foxconn India in SRIperumbudur near Chennai take on the corporate giant, demanding better wages. WORKERS at Foxconn-India in SRIperumbudur in Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu, have been on strike from September 24 demanding better wages. They also want the reinstatement of 24 suspended colleagues and the withdrawal of an eight-day wage cut slapped on some workers. That they have held out for so long is remarkable, not least...