French nuclear giant Areva, which is planning to sell India six masssive1650 MWe EPR nuclear reactors for the Jaitapur site in Maharashtra, is facing serious financial difficulties with net losses in 2011 placed at well over €1 billion. Areva's CEO, Luc Oursel, announced drastic job cutbacks and the sale of over €2 billion worth of assets, essentially in the company's uranium mines sector, to offset these losses. Trading in the company's...

Leaders of farmer groups are meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday to press for allowing FDI in retail. Leaders from four states with lion's share in India's farm GDP--Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka -- will be part of the delegation.  "We will give December 31 as deadline for implementation of FDI. After that we will begin a nationwide stir," said PV Chengal Reddy, who heads Confederation of Indian Farmers, a...

What lies behind Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s note to the prime minister asking for a suspension of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA, for short) for three months a year? The obvious reason is that the big farmers’ lobby he represents is unhappy that NREGA has raised wages in rural areas and labour cannot be enticed to work for less. Under NREGA, labourers get paid at least Rs...

-AP   A UN climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement Sunday on a complex and far-reaching programme meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change for the coming decades. The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all countries under the same legal regime enforcing commitments to control greenhouse gases. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest. The deal also set...

-The Business Standard   Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan on Tuesday made it clear at the global climate change meet at Durban, South Africa, that India would not compromise on the principles of equity and historical responsibility in addressing the issue of climate change. India and China are being targeted for their high carbon emission. Talking on the sidelines of the meet, the minister said, “Equity is central to any debate on climate...