The worst fears of the Madhya Pradesh unit of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), have come true with regard to the high per unit cost of power to be produced by the controversial privately-owned Maheshwar hydro project in Madhya Pradesh: Information revealed through an RTI application shows that the private company developing the dam has projected the average cost of electricity to be produced at a whopping Rs. 10 per...

Central pension plan NPS finally gets a boost The ‘New’ NPS     Measure: Improve incentives for distributors. Has been recently implemented.     Impact: Was required. But won’t be enough, need consumer education to build volumes.     Proposal: Increase fund management fees with an option to lower later.     Impact: Under consideration. But finance ministry unhappy with increase in costs.     Proposal: Relax the norms to appoint more fund managers to increase distribution.     Impact: Unlikely. At...

There can be little quarrel with the argument that India requires a comprehensive policy to prevent sex selection as put forward by National Advisory Council members Farah Naqvi and A.K. Shiva Kumar in The Hindu (“India & the sex selection conundrum,” January 24, 2012). That the use of sex selection technologies to abort female foetuses is linked to the increasing devaluation and disempowerment of women is well known. It is...

-Live Mint This week marks the completion of six years of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Six years is not a long period of time for any meaningful evaluation of a programme of such nature. However, even within this short period of time, the programme has attracted considerable attention. One part of this is the criticism of how the programme involved considerable leakages, did not create productive...

After a perilous wait of eleven years and four days for justice, 40 residents of Sangemarmar Apartments, which collapsed during the earthquake 2001, received their due from the builders responsible for the tragedy. Gujarat State consumer Disputes Redressal Commission ordered the builders of Sangemarmar Apartments, to pay varying amounts of compensations for the building collapse - around Rs 35 lakh each to residents of the flats who complained that the building...