A new report on India's housing sector confirms with facts and figures what has been suspected all along: that despite growing demand for affordable housing, supply side responses have been weak and sluggish. This means even though the housing sector can directly impact employment and income generation, and has multiple forward and backward linkages with various industries, it needs innovative ideas, pro-poor thinking and policy stimulus. (See link below for...

-The Hindu The decision of the Ministry of Environment and Forests to revalidate the environmental clearance issued to South Korean steelmaker Posco for the proposed steel plant in Odisha is based on a piecemeal approach, rather than a comprehensive and cumulative assessment of all parts of the project. It cannot claim to rely on sound judgment. What distinguishes the proposal from the welter of projects before the Ministry is its...

-Frontline The latest NSSO estimates put the number of slums in India at a much lower level than Census 2011. The latest National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) survey estimates the number of slums in India at 33,510 with 8.8 million households in them. The study, "Key indicators of urban slums in India", was conducted between July and December 2012. Census 2011's "Housing stock, amenities and assets in slums" puts the number of...

-The Indian Express Kutch (Gujarat): Bhajan Singh, 62, remembers the time curious villagers turned up to see a borewell his father Gopal Singh had dug up. The year was 1969 and it was the first time Sumrasar village, near Bhuj in Kutch district, had had a borewell. Few had ever seen it work, as they depended entirely on rainwater for the barely one crop they harvested a year. Originally from Pakistan, Gopal...

-The Hindustan Times Many ongoing projects including housing and industries will brace for an escalation in costs as the new land law has come into force on Wednesday. The much-touted Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Rehabilitation and Resettlement law-that provides four times hike in rural land price-will apply to all projects where compensations are yet to be given for land acquisition. Industries like the housing or hotels will be forced to...