Plans to hold an ASIa level conference in Delhi in November The National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), which plans to form an ASIa-level alliance to give momentum to the street vendor movement in different parts of the continent, is planning to hold an ASIa-level conference in Delhi in November later this year. The organisation hopes the Union Housing and Urban Poverty Ministry will be a key partner for this...

The land problem in Singur was a turning point in the political fortunes of both the Left Front and the Trinamul Congress. The story is far from complete, and the legal twists and turns between Mamata Banerjee and the house of Tata could unfold in surprising ways. The issue of adequate compensation for farmers, who had to part with their land, is still an open question to which many well...

Although a normal monsoon has been forecast for South ASIa this year, and rains have begun normally in many parts of the region, people are still anxious about the rainy season that lasts for four months. Their anxiety has to do with the uncertainties surrounding the timing of the monsoon in recent years. While the debate continues over the role of climate change, scientists have also been looking at the possible role...

The Mamata Banerjee government has initiated an ambitious project to bring specialised health care to rural Bengal, asking private hospitals to set up “super-speciality” units alongside state-run hospitals in the districts. As a start, the chief minister has taken up with cardiologist and ASIa Heart Foundation chairman Devi Shetty a plan to set up six such hospitals that would provide the sort of critical care that is now missing in most...

Despite the much-hyped rural consumption boom and all the social sector programmes of the government, the income inequality between the rural and urban consumer widened to 91% in the first five years of the United Progressive Alliance coming to power in 2004. According to the 66th round of the household consumption expenditure survey released by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on Friday, the per capita expenditure level of the urban...