-The Pioneer Bhubaneswar: With the increasing demand for building and construction materials in a rapid urbanisation and industrialisation process in the State, the use of minor minerals has been increasing. The housing and road communication projects, both in rural and urban areas and industrial hubs, have created huge demand for minor minerals that have raised concern for an effective minor mineral management policy. It is a fact that in many areas there...

-FirstPost.com One of the fears that has been raised in the aftermath of the government promulgating an ordinance to amend the Land Acquisition Act is that land will be taken away for other purposes and given that, the amount of land used for farming will come down dramatically. This is a very specious argument that is being made. Data from World Bank shows that around 60.3 percent of India's land area is...

-The Guardian Universal healthcare is often presented as an idealistic goal that remains out of reach for all but the richest nations. That's not the case, writes Amartya Sen. Look at what has been achieved in Rwanda, Thailand and Bangladesh Twenty-five hundred years ago, the young Gautama Buddha left his princely home, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in a state of agitation and agony. What was he so distressed about?...

-Business Standard The tribal affairs ministry has drafted revised rules on tribal consent which are now being reviewed by the environment, forests and climate change ministry After approving an ordinance that does away with the need for consent of owners to acquire their land for infrastructure projects and other purposes, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is finalising the dilution of tribal rights over forest land, which will ease and hasten handing...

-Vikalp Most countries in the world spend a sizable amount of public fund on health, though delivery of health services is organised through a mix of government and private providers. The countries recording high level of public spending in health have secured better health outcomes compared to the countries with low spending, barring few exceptions like the US, where high public spending co-exists with high exclusion. Some however have also...