-The Economic Times   Contracts for building 11,050 kms of roads will be awarded in the current fiscal year involving an estimated investment of Rs 70,000 crore, as per the target set by the Ministry of Road , Transport and Highways . The ambitious road building plans were reviewed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today with Road Transport Minister C P Joshi and senior officials of the ministry and the National Highways...

Moves by developed nations such as the United States to tighten intellectual property laws are threatening to limit production and distribution of generic drugs, which experts say have been and will remain key in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and currently account for 80 percent of HIV/AIDS treatment. These efforts are taking shape in two spheres. The first is in discussions on the outcome document that member states are expected...

No one’s buying the government’s desperate arguments to keep the prime minister above Lokpal scrutiny Points Of Friction   Government and civil society representatives have sparred on the question of including the prime minister in the proposed Lokpal Bill on seven key grounds: Point: The Prime Minister is accountable only to Parliament, and to the people of India Counterpoint: Does this mean a PM can never face action for criminal liability, however serious the charge,...

Governments can acquire land for “public purpose” while making sure that the displaced are compensated, relocated and rehabilitated. THE violent conflict over land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh and the persisting resistance to land acquisition for the Posco project in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa are merely recent instances that exemplify the growing stand-off between the Indian state and its people centred on land. On the one side are governments (both Central...

The current perception that cash transfers can replace public provision of basic goods and services and become a catch-all solution for poverty reduction is false. Where cash transfers have helped to reduce poverty, they have added to public provision, not replaced it. For crucial items like food, direct provision protects poor consumers from rising prices and is part of a broader strategy to ensure domestic supply. Problems like targeting errors...