Indian traders reject FDI in multi-brand retail and emphasise the need for a policy to regulate the labour-intensive sector. TRADERS across the country responded angrily to the Union Cabinet's decision to allow 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail trade, disproving the arguments of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the assessment of corporate India, which had tried hard to make it appear that traders and...
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Team Anna Hazare's calls to redraw the lawmaking process spell anarchy
-The Economic Times The movement against corruption that the erroneously labelled 'Gandhian' Anna Hazare has spearheaded has had some positives. For one, it brought into sharp focus wide public anger against the malaise of endemic corruption. Two, it reaffirmed the role of civil society members in intervening and shaping public discourse. And, three, it generally shook up a system inert to, if not actively resistant to, any genuine measures to tackle...
More »Durban climate change talks: Go for energy efficiency
-The Economic Times The Durban meet on climate change seems to work out fine for India. The conference has decided on a roadmap to curb emissions of greenhouse-causing gases by both developing and advanced economies; the actual accord is to be firmed up by 2015 and take effect in 2020. The rich, industrialised economies now need to walk the talk and take concrete action to significantly curb their carbon emissions. And...
More »PM mulls Rs.1,000 crore corpus for housing poor
-IANS The government is considering creating a corpus fund of Rs.1,000 crore ($18.7 million) in the current fiscal that would encourage banks to give housing loans in 'significant volumes' to the urban poor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Tuesday. Addressing a conference on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) here, Manmohan Singh said the corpus of Rs.1,000 would be set aside to create a credit risk guarantee fund that could...
More »Jailed Journalists Reflect Greater Struggle for Internet Freedom by Rosemary D'Amour
The number of journalists in prison worldwide has spiked to its highest level in 15 years. Of them, nearly half worked online, raising larger questions about Internet freedom for more than just reporters, but average citizens as well. Eighty-six out of 179 journalists who were in prison worldwide as of Dec. 1, 2011 were reporters or bloggers whose work appeared online, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect...
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