-Live Mint     Gujarat has grown faster than the national average—a point worth noting. But there’s no need for drumbeats  Gujarat's economic performance has been facing great scrutiny ever since chief minister Narendra Modi emerged as one of the top prime ministerial candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). I have been asked to compare Gujarat's economic performance during the past decade with that in the past and separate fact from fiction...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Humble sand is today big business. The boom in the construction industry in the last decade has triggered a huge demand for sand, to meet which contractors, with the help of pliant state officials, have begun a dig-load-sell exercise at a frantic pace. The story of illegal loot of sand in this high-stake business is repeated in state after state. TOI spoke to several officials, activists,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Unemployment was highest among Sikhs living in cities and Towns during 2009-10 while the rate of joblessness showed a downward trend for Muslims in both urban and rural areas, a government survey released this month has revealed. Muslims had the lowest per capita spending, according to the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), which in its 2009-10 survey put out a new report on employment trends for...

-The Business Standard The tragedy involving the death of children in a Bihar school should reinforce recent efforts to improve the programme, notes Amarjeet Sinha. The sad loss of 23 innocent lives after consuming hot cooked meals in a school in Bihar has rightly shocked and angered people. The highly poisonous pesticide monocrotophos found in children's food and a headmistress overlooking the cook and the children's protests about the oil and not...

-The Times of India I grew up in Patna but the place where I learned to ride a bicycle was Chaibasa. My seventh birthday passed unnoticed because my maternal grandmother had died the previous week, but my parents relented and bought me the promised bicycle. Yesterday, I went back to Chaibasa after more than 40 years. My father was a civil servant who had served for many years in what is now...