-Outlook Bhubaneswar: A World Bank team has offered to provide technical assistance, global expertise and logistic support to Odisha and its mining sector, official sources said today. This was conveyed by the five-member World Bank Team led by Vikram Menon, State Programme Coordinator, to the state government while wrapping up its visit here yesterday. "The team expressed its willingness to provide and utilise non-lending technical assistance and world-class expertise in the state mining...

-The Hindu     Even as the passage of the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill-2013 in Parliament seems imminent, the demand to refer the Bill to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for public consultation is gaining momentum both within and outside the House. After the Biju Janta Dal MP Baijayant Panda, another Lok Sabha MP Ajoy Kumar has written a letter to Speaker Meira Kumar requesting her to refer the Bill to a Standing...

-The Hindu     Among basic services, sanitation - public toilets in particular - ranks as national Capital's worst public service Despite an overall improvement in the quality of life it offers its citizens, Delhi is home to large inequalities in access to basic services, the Capital's latest Human Development Report, which was released by Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Saturday, has revealed. Seven years after coming out with its first...

-Frontline Riding roughshod over farmers' concerns, the Gujarat government notifies a project to develop the Mandal-Becharaji Special Investment Region, an industrial hub spread over 50,884 hectares, affecting 44 villages. But the villagers see it as a real estate scam and are determined to resist it. GUJARAT may soon have several new townships. The Narendra Modi-led government has proposed to set up 13 special investment regions (SIRs), which are essentially industrial hubs...

-The Hindu The move to redefine 'handloom' is in the interest of powerloom operators who will be able to corner benefits meant for weavers "Any loom, other than powerloom; and includes any hybrid loom on which, at least one process for weaving requires manual intervention or human energy for production." (The new definition of handloom proposed by Ministry of Textiles) The textile industry in India comprises three sectors - the mill, the powerloom and...