The Tatas pulled out of Singur; the Salims of Indonesia out of Nandigram. What is still ticking is the Jindals’ Rs-35,000-crore, 10-million-tonne steel plant at Salboni. It has the potential to churn out the first industrial success story for whoever captures power in West Bengal after May 13. Along with the steel plant, a 1,000-MW power project to is coming up. At one point, Salboni had appeared to have the makings of...

Tihar jail today has the largest collection of charged or convicted top officials, a powerful ex-minister, sundry politicians and officials. Maharashtra had a teflon-coated chief minister who was ‘sacked’ to a cabinet post in Delhi after being long untouched by many scandals. Another just exited. A former Jharkhand chief minister is in jail on charges of looting his state treasury and accumulating funds abroad. The powerful founder of the Nationalist...

India plans to increase its allocation for health to 2%-3% of its GDP over the next five years. Public spending on health was 0·94% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004–05, which was among the lowest in the world. Private expenditure on health in India is about 78% as compared to 14% in the Maldives, Bhutan (29%), Sri Lanka (53%), Thailand (31%) and China (61%). Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on...

Archaic labour laws are not affecting India's manufacturing sector as much as problems related to land, water, licences and clearances, a government panel's study shows. With the findings of the Planning Commission study, changing rigid labour laws, so far suspected to be the main hurdle before the manufacturing sector, is likely to drop on the government's list of priorities. The sector contributes 15% to India's GDP. "Against popular perception, we...

Blame the poor enforcement of the Integrated Pest Management policy for the toxins in your salad Here is a scary story about pesticides from an enterprising farmer. Subramaniam Kannaiyan — from Thalavady village in Erode, Tamil Nadu — blogs about his experiences with pesticides with respect to a single vegetable, cabbage. Small and marginal farmers with less than two hectares of land are cultivating cabbages on about 3,000 acres here. According to...