-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The rift between the Prime Minister's Office and the Congress is once again out in the open over passing of a landmark legislation to prevent diversion of funds earmarked for Scheduled Castes/Tribes, a core constituency that Congress has lost steadily. The latest bone of contention - the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan and Tribal Sub Plan Bill 2013 - is ready for the consideration of the Cabinet. While...

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 Business Line Malnutrition, lack of clean water and prevalence of poor sanitation are the main causes of high child mortality in India. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) was released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Welt Hunger Hilfe (WHH) recently. According to the GHI, the world has made some progress in reducing hunger since the early 1990s and the millennium development goal of halving the share of...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: The state government today reacted sharply to the Centre's decision to reject Vedanta's plan to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills in Kalahandi district. Mining of bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills was to be carried out by the state-owned Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC) and Sterlite Industries Limited, a Vedanta group subsidiary. Steel and mines minister Rajanikant Singh said: "It is really unfortunate. The UPA government is not serious about the...

-Outlook Bhubaneswar: Optimistic about progress of Posco's Rs 52,000 crore steel project, Odisha government today said it would sign a fresh tripartite agreement with the South Korean steel major as the validity of the original MoU lapsed three years ago. "The state government will sign a fresh agreement with Posco and Posco-India for setting up the proposed mega steel mill near Paradip," Steel and Mines minister R K Singh said while describing...