-The Business Standard If Mr Vadra had to count his friends in the real estate business, they would be Corporation Bank, the Haryana government and DLF  Robert Vadra, who is at the centre of a controversy over his property dealings with realty giant DLF and others, began investing in real estate five years ago, in 2007-08. He was already a wealthy man by then, not a struggling businessman who could scrape only...

-The Times of India JAIPUR/NEW DELHI: After battling water shortages for 10 long years, Bharatpur is again ready to host winged visitors in numbers not seen in the bird sanctuary since the 1990s. Water from the Goverdhan drain reached the park last week, promising a permanent solution to the water woes of Keoladeo Ghana National Park. The Goverdhan project, which became functional last Friday, uses a 17.4km pipeline to pump Yamuna flood...

-The Hindu Property empire was built on soft loans handed out in unusual circumstances, documents show In February, as rumours of the ambitions of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law swirled amidst the heat and dust of the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, her daughter Priyanka moved to scotch speculation about Robert Vadra’s possible political future. “He’s a successful businessman,” the younger Ms. Gandhi said of her husband, “who is not interested in changing...

-Outlook The death of 39 rhinos in and around the world-famous Kaziranga National Park in less than 10 months has brought to the fore the threat faced by the endangered animal. The threat comes from poachers, who kill the rare one-horned rhinoceros for its prized horn whose price in the international market varies from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 90 lakh, and flood which is an annual occurrence in Assam. Early last month,...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court’s unyielding criticism of the government for not eradicating the practice of manual scavenging was the springboard for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to introduce the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012 in the Lok Sabha on September 3. Welcomed as a panacea for the historically iniquitous, caste-ordained practice of manually handling human waste, the new Bill indicates renewed commitment...