The World Bank has agreed to provide USD 900 million financial aid to Pakistan which has been hit by devastating floods affecting 14 million people and leading to crop loss estimated at USD 1 billion. "The Government of Pakistan has requested around USD 900 million of financial support from the World Bank, which we have committed to provide," the World Bank said in statement. The current floods have claimed over 1700 lives...
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Centre plans to give tribals a share in mining profits
The Centre is planning to give a 26 per cent share in mining profits to tribal people and to set up a regulatory body to check illegal mining, Union Minister of Mines B.K. Handique informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday. The draft of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill — prepared on the basis of the policy directions set forth in the 2008 National Mineral Policy and the recommendations...
More »RTI under attack by V Eshwar Anand
EVEN though the Right to Information Act guarantees citizens their right to know and expose corruption in government offices, increasing attacks on RTI activists have put this most important right in jeopardy. The RTI Act was enacted after a long struggle by civil rights organisations. However, those who dare question the ways of the powers that be and expose them are eliminated in cold-blooded murders. The manner in which Amit...
More »Fault Lines in the 2010 Seeds Bill by S Bala Ravi
The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...
More »Tackling hunger by Purnima S Tripathy
The NAC suggests steps to ensure food security, but its recommendation for ‘selective universalisation' of the PDS is criticised. INDIA is home to some 230 million undernourished people – that is, 27 per cent of all undernourished people in the world. Worse still, more than half of all child deaths in India are because of malnutrition, and over 1.5 million children in the country are at the risk of being malnourished...
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