-The Economic Times Even as the Centre is desperately trying to accommodate its key ally Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), the alliance partner is showing no signs of reciprocating the gesture in the crucial highways sector where projects are getting delayed because of tardy land acquisition. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the main implementing agency for highway development in the...

The idea of interlinking rivers is appealing because it is so grand, but this is also the reason it is nothing more than a distraction The Supreme Court recently issued a diktat to the central government about the scheme to interlink rivers. The directions are straightforward. The government shall set up a high-level committee of ministers and other representatives on interlinking of rivers; the committee shall meet “at least once in...

-The Business Standard Is river interlinking really worthwhile and viable? The Supreme Court’s startling directive to the Centre to set up a “special committee” to expedite river interlinking, which the Court declared was in the “national interest”, has caused the grandiose project to be, once again, closely examined. The idea has been fashionable in fits and starts; it was conceived as far back as the 1970s, and was promoted by the National...

-The Hindu In Goa, victorious MLAs fielded by every major party are facing criminal cases, whereas 37 (93 per cent) of the 40 newly elected members of the Assembly are ‘crorepatis,' compared to 55 per cent in the 2007 elections. Goa once again has only one (3 per cent) woman MLA. The analysis released on Saturday by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch is based on the information supplied by...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can be devastatingly polite: when Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari, who has a commercial interest in agriculture, wrote him a doomsday letter on the dire state of agriculture under UPA rule, Dr. Singh took a month to reply, but when he did, it was to tell the BJP president in excruciating detail about the rise in agricultural production during his tenure in office, which compares...