Negotiators from China and Japan clashed over the Kyoto Protocol at the UN climate change meet here, highlighting the uncertain future of the only treaty that puts legally binding emission targets on industrialised nations. Noting that some countries do not "like" the Kyoto Protocol, deputy head of China's delegation, Huang Huikang said, "Now we are even more worried about the KP (Kyoto Protocol)...they even want to kill the KP." "There must be...

The village bureaucrat shifted from foot to foot, hands clasped behind his back, beads of sweat forming on his balding head. The eyes of hundreds of wiry village laborers, clad in dusty lungis, were fixed upon him. A group of auditors, themselves villagers, read their findings. A signature had been forged for the delivery of soil to rehabilitate farmland. The soil had never arrived, and about $4,000 was missing. The...

Farmer leader Manveer Singh Tevatia on Monday announced that he along with his supporters will sit on a fast unto death at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi from December 1 in support of their demands to amend the Land Acquisition Act 1894 and to implement UP government's new land acquisition policy with retrospective effect from 1997. The demands also include right to decide the rate of the land-to-be-acquired should be...

Frequent and unrelenting protests against land acquisition seem to have compelled political parties to take the issue seriously. The Centre has promised to introduce a redrafted land acquisition Bill during the winter session of Parliament. As per official pronouncements, the Bill will provide for higher compensation to the affected parties. Besides, acquisition for private companies will be restricted to less than 30% of the total land required for the project. However,...

At least 29 of the 66 migrants crushed to death in east Delhi when a building collapsed on Monday night hailed from Bengal. The figure signposts the exodus of an abandoned generation and the inability of a state to retain its young or equip them for a better life elsewhere. The death of so many Bengalis has brought out in the open troubling issues that policymakers — both in the state...