It's a Rs 50,000 crore annual business but those at the bottom of the supply chain -- mostly tribals -- make a mere Rs 4,000 crore out of it. The extraction of non-timber forest produce -- tuburs, leaves, seeds, plants and roots, besides other products from forest -- could soon become a bigger money-spinner for tribals. The government has set up a committee, which in three months will recommend how...

The Union Cabinet approves a new Bill to protect whistle-blowers, but there is concern whether its provisions will amount to much. ON March 22, a special court in Patna pronounced three persons guilty in the murder of Satyendra K. Dubey, a civil engineer from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He was shot dead on November 29, 2003, for blowing the whistle on corrupt practices in the Golden Quadrilateral Project in Bihar....

The fund crunch for the government’s rural roads programme appears all set to affect road construction efforts in the worst Naxal-affected districts where the government is contemplating to saturate road requirements — by connecting every habitation — beyond the rigid norms of Bharat Nirman and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The Rural Development Ministry, which administers the rural connectivity programme, is learnt to have apprised an empowered group of officers,...

A Group of Ministers (GoM) will discuss on Thursday issues pertaining to illegal mining, a ban on iron ore exports, the new mining legislation and setting aside a share in the profits of mining companies for the development of tribal areas. Officials of the Ministry of Mines said Minister B.K. Handique was pushing for the Ministry's proposal to make mining companies in tribal areas shell out a part of their equity,...

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto turned classical capitalism on its head with his trickle-up theory: that if you create wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, it will find its way up. de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on the need for the poor to be able to participate in the global economy...