The stalled Land Acquisition Bill should be completely overhauled. In both China and India the issue of land acquisition has become politically very sensitive. In China by official Reports more than 66 million farmers have been dislocated in recent years for various commercial development projects. Local officials in cahoots with local business have been rather cavalier in this matter, and this has inflamed passions in the countryside. In India the...

Just when everyone thought that the debate over large dams was settled against displacement, mega dams are back in business. Refusing to learn from our own mistakes are the three newly created states, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. The three states are locked in battles against one another to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to construct several large dams and barrages ostensibly to give a push to a new wave of...

Woman dies in Mahabubnagar  HYDERABAD: The swine flu virus, which was hitherto confined to a few cities, claimed its second victim in Mahabubnagar district on Thursday as the disease spread fast to new areas. A suspected patient was quarantined in Guntur. According to information reaching here, Saritha of Peddapur village in Veldanda mandal in Mahabubnagar district, died at a private hospital in Hyderabad in the early hours on Thursday. Saritha...

NEW DELHI: A combative rural development minister CP Joshi has defended packing a key NREGA advisory body with Congress MPs, saying he could not give space to people who were opposed to the UPA agenda. Joshi was battling questions on why only Congress MPs and social activists were made part of the Central Employment Guarantee Council when the RD ministry could have made it politically inclusive. Rejecting the charge, Joshi...

New York, Sep 10 2009 10:10AM: The number of children dying before their fifth birthday has decreased steadily over the past few years and fell to under 9 million in 2008, thanks in part to greater use of health interventions such as vaccinations and insecticide-treated bednets to prevent malaria, the United Nations Children’s Fund said today. Newly released data compiled by demographers and health experts from UNICEF, the World Health Organization,...