-The Times of India An ongoing exercise at the Planning Commission lays bare Bihar's ambitious growth agenda. Its total plan outlay for the 12th five-year plan (2012-17) at Rs 2.69 lakh crore is more than what a fast growing state like Gujarat has spent in the last 50 years. Bihar's projected expenditure in the next five years will be the third highest among all states, next only to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: Faced with an imminent Jharkhand High Court hearing on the progress made at Nagri where three premier educational institutes are coming up, a cornered state government has planned a desperate defence to counter allegations of mishandling the issue and escalating the battle of ownership of 227 acres. According to sources, the government will tell the court of a plan to set up police barracks at the construction sites of...

Model community forestry initiatives in Orissa are defying Forest Department efforts to control and exploit the region’s forests. ‘Heaven is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees / And hell is a forest of miles and miles of Mohua trees with a forest guard in it!’ Thus goes a song of the Muria Adivasis in the forests of Bastar in central India. Encapsulated in this simple expression, however, is...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

-The Hindu THE SUNDAY STORY The property and real estate sections of free advertisement-only newspapers offer the best insight. Most advertisements titled ‘for vegetarians only’ were from areas such as Jayanagar, Basavangudi and Malleshwaram.   In the last 30 years, his firm has helped thousands of people find properties of their choice. He is one of the biggest names in the highly competitive real estate industry of Bangalore. Fardeen Ahmed (name changed)...