-The Hindu New IPCC report raises questions over urgency or seriousness of climate change The climate has not been warming over the past 15 years at rates predicted earlier, the latest report of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to be released September end, is going to say. The report is also going to accept that carbon dioxide gas concentration in atmosphere may not be as potent in causing global temperature...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The National Food Security Bill, which seeks to provide heavily-subsidized food to two-thirds of India's 1.23 billion people, was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Monday. Much like what happened in the Lok Sabha last week, there was a scramble among political parties to garner populist brownie points even as they differed fiercely on CERTain provisions of the bill and their implementation. With the Congress all...

-The Financial Express Food Security Bill will raise the subsidy burden by 18%. The debate should be about the rise in costs of households due to leakages in PDS and price hike of other nutritious food items, and how these costs can be minimised by DBT In a recent article, Surjit Bhalla ("Manmonia's FSB: 3% of GDP", July 6, Financial Express-http://goo.gl/qoIbd3) has asserted that the Food Security Bill will cost 3% of...

-The Indian Express Bangalore: It was a Lok Sabha byelection fought and won by fulfilling a basic, daily need. In the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency in the suburbs of the city, winning Congress candidate D K Suresh offered the people a straightforward deal- bottled drinking water dispensed through innovative "water ATMs". Suresh, the brother of Congress leader D K Shivakumar, set up 33 water ATMs, dispensing kiosks attached to reserve...

-The Business Standard The process prescribed in the law is so cumbersome and time consuming that neither industry nor landowner will benefit Fast economic growth in the last two decades has increased demand for land from many sources, such as infrastructure, industry, mining, and urbanisation, including real estate. Even when these activities are funded privately and are driven by profit motive, they serve a social purpose since employment generation per unit of...