A host of steel-manufacturing units are keen to set up plants in Karnataka, and all want captive mines. SOUTH KOREA'S Posco is not the only steel-maker keen to do business in Karnataka. The State's estimated 9,000 million tonnes of good-quality iron ore reserves, which is the second largest in India, the State government's assurances on a smooth land acquisition process, the availability of water and the promise of speedy regulatory clearances...

-The Business Standard   Indian economy has been on a sustained growth path, but Indians are still spending a major chunk of their expenditure on food items. Per capita consumption expenditure in a month was 88 per cent more in case of urban India compared to rural India during 2009-10, a trend which was more or less five years ago, according to the latest figures on consumption expenditure. Per capita expenditure on consumption for...

Conditional cash transfers are necessary but not sufficient for improving health. Good government-funded health care is essential, as are schemes which address social determinants of health. The march of capitalism, with its reduced emphasis on public spending, while improving many national economies has also widened the gap between the rich and the poor. For millions of Indians, hunger is routine, malnutrition rife, employment insecure, health care expensive and livelihoods are under...

Mining companies and political leaders in the State allegedly involved in illegal mining are growing anxious. Not only is the Lokayukta's final report to be submitted soon, but they are also worried about certain sealed documents submitted by the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to the Forest Bench of the Supreme Court. Samaj Parivartana Samudaya (SPS) (an organisation of the National Committee for Protection of Natural Resources (NCPNR)), which has filed a...

Last week, an enterprising resident welfare association in Ghaziabad organised a registration camp for unique identification (UID) numbers. It found people queuing up till midnight for a week with infants, grandmothers and some with domestic workers in tow. No one had a clue as to how UID was different from the several other identity documents each of them had been scrupulously accumulating and treasuring. They were initially informed that all they...