In what appears to be a travesty of justice, three petty thieves were convicted of murdering National Highways Authority of India whistleblower Satyendra Dubey, who had exposed corruption in the PM's Golden Quadrilateral Project in November 2003. Six years after his murder, a Patna fast-track court on Monday convicted all the three accused in the case. Judge Raghvendra Singh will decide on the quantum of punishment to the three convicts...

In a congested part of Patna, capital of India's Bihar state, stands a striking yellow building - a 100-year-old mansion that has clearly seen better days. Inside it, in a small dark room, a young bearded cleric is reading out sermons from the Muslim holy scriptures to a group of boys seated cross-legged on the floor. They are in their late teens, some are wearing skull caps and they all listen...

One looks forward to the Finance Minister's budget speech with a hope that it spells some new major initiatives and schemes for development, and that it might promise any major allocation of resources to any sector, besides fresh tax proposals. In the case of education sector, one might feel disappointed at the proposals made in the Union budget for 2010-11 on both counts. No new initiatives are proposed; no major...

It is presumed that the industrial development in Bihar is hampered by lack of investments. Is it because of 'unproductive' government policies or an unpredictable law and order situation? And how to increase the flow of investment in the state? In order to find out answers to all such questions and debate these issues, Business Standard Hindi recently organised a roundtable in Patna. The seminar was attended by various small...

Why is the government aggressively attacking and destroying inexpensive eco-friendly technologies and promoting pollution-friendly ones? Are we obliged to repeat all the mistakes that the West committed in its pursuit of economic growth? While it makes sense to corner First World countries into investing in eco- friendly technologies to control carbon emissions, as was attempted at Copenhagen, the stand of the Indian government that India cannot afford to enforce better...