-The Business Standard Delhi's power tariff hike needs a thorough probe Since the privatisation of power distribution in Delhi in 2002, the average domestic electricity tariff has seen a rise of 107 per cent. It was Rs 2.50 a unit in 2001-02 and – after last week’s increase of 24 per cent with effect from this month – has gone up to Rs 5.17 a unit. This latest hike comes after another...

While any loss in production following the dry spell will further hit the growth story, it will also push up food inflation. considerably. Once again the rain gods are playing truant. With 31 per cent shortfall in June, and with an expectation of only 70 per cent of the predicted 96 per cent rainfall for the July-August months, crucial for farming operations, kharif sowings have already been hit.   In June alone,...

-Reuters A shortfall in monsoon rains has widened to nearly 50 percent of average in the past week, making a revival next week crucial for farmers to sow summer-planted crops such as rice, corn, cane, cotton and soybean. The annual rains are crucial for farm output and economic growth as about 55 percent of the South Asian nation's arable land is rain-fed. Farm sector accounts for about 15 percent of a nearly $2-trillion...

Only 22 compensated in four years, admits drugs controller during RTI hearing As many as 2,031 people in India have died because of the clinical drug trials they were subjected to in the past four years. Only 22 of them have been compensated. What's more, no action has been taken so far against any pharma company, ethics committee that oversees clinical trials or contract research organisation that conducts the trials, which...

-The Economic Times Piyush Khanolkar, a 38-year-old farmer from the Marathwada district of Maharashtra, has just sold off 10 gm of gold which he had accrued over a period of last five years to a local jeweller. With good rains not in sight yet, he has been forced to sell off the gold to create a corpus to meet his family needs in the coming months if there is a crop failure. Prabhu...