-The Hindu Mining companies have received favourable impact assessments even as they do great damage to the environment because regulators are willing to look the other way Last week, world leaders concerned about economic development got together at the International Monetary Fund, and gave a series of most instructive interviews. Our Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, said that his problem was the slowing down of India's economic growth and reduction in government revenues....

-The Indian Express Gurgaon: Trucks loaded with new elementary school textbooks were seen parked outside many government primary schools in Gurgaon, a little over two weeks ago - at a time when first half of the academic year is over. The reason, district school authorities said, was a problem with the tender given to a state "printing press" which delayed printing of the books. By the end of the first term, children...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Nearly three of every four students shortlisted for the Indian Institutes of Technology this year come from two of the country's 29 school boards, an analysis of the results has shown. The results have confirmed a long-standing suspicion: distribution of students who made it to the elite tech schools is not uniform across the two national and 27 state boards. The analysis has shown that of the nearly...

-The Hindu In addition to ailments caused by poverty, salt pan workers across the country suffer from several occupational diseases, including chronic dermatitis, loss of vision and hypothyroidism In Adivasi Colony, a remote hamlet off the road from Vedaranyam to Kodikarai in Tamil Nadu, most of the adults in the 200-odd households work in salt manufacturing. They prepare salt pans manually, irrigate them with saline water which is three times saltier than...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate has given a clean chit to Wal-Mart, the world's largest supermarket chain, in a case related to alleged violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema), a move that may pave the way for the US retailer to pursue its India investment plans more aggressively. Earlier this week, ED wrote to the RBI, saying a case of violation could not be made out as...