India is taking proactive measures and ready to make Concessions to ensure a successful conclusion of the Doha round of multilateral trade talks, an official said here Tuesday. Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma is scheduled to meet World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy, chairs of the sub-groups on agriculture, industrial products and services and ambassadors of various informal groupings at the WTO headquarters in Geneva Wednesday to push for...

Last month, leaders from 185 countries met in New York to take stock of progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — which include, among other things, eradicating poverty and hunger, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health — that were set in 2000 by the United Nations. The aim was to achieve these goals by 2015. But 10 years down the line, the world is way behind targets in achieving...

This important question of law referred to larger Bench of Supreme Court Is a person belonging to a Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe in a State entitled or not to benefits or Concessions allowed to SC/ST candidates in employment in another State? The Supreme Court on Thursday referred this question to a larger Bench. A Bench of Justices B. Sudershan Reddy and S.S. Nijjar, in its order, said: “A very important question of law...

Finance minsiter Pranab Mukherjee has favoured a balanced approach on the issue of displacement of tribals due to mining projects, saying that solution does not lie in stopping these projects altogether. “Answer does not lie in the companies stopping mining activities. Answer lies in providing alternatives to those displaced... in what form we can compensate them and make them beneficiary of economic development,” Mr Mukherjee said at a coal summit on...

Amid a furore over 26 per cent profit-sharing with locals under the proposed new mining law and demands for watering down the provision for PSUs, the Mines Ministry today said its final draft will go with the recommendations of the Group of Ministers. "Based on the discussion of the Group of Ministers (GoM), the final draft of the new mining bill is being prepared by the Mines Ministry and will be...