-The United Nations   Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the world to recognize the right of indigenous peoples to control their intellectual property, saying they needed help to protect, develop and receive fair compensation for their cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. “Indigenous peoples face many challenges in maintaining their identity, traditions and customs, and their cultural contributions are at times exploited and commercialized, with little or no recognition,” Mr. Ban said in a...

-Express News Service   The state government, on Tuesday, sealed documents related to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in four blocks of Sonbhadra following reports of anomalies in implementation of the scheme in the district. The action was taken on the report on misappropriation of scheme funds submitted by Central investigation team early this year. The Central team was headed by GN Sharma, consultant, Union Ministry of Rural Development. On Monday,...

In the past 50 years or so, we have come face to face with unusual climatic occurrences, weather changes and environmental disasters. These are a corollary of the global pursuit of rapid growth, in particular rapid growth of industrialisation, and very often the mindless and predatory exploitation of natural resources. These have happened across the world, without distinguishing between rich and poor nations... In the increasingly integrated world that we live...

In an effort to counterLeft wing extremism, the Central government is looking at ways to rework its development programmes and its delivery mechanism in the affected districts. The decision to go back to the drawing board on the delivery of keyrural development programmes -- like the rural employment guarantee scheme and roads programme etc --- comes after Rural Development MinisterJairam Ramesh traveled to five Left-wing extremism (LWE) affected districts -...

This essay describes and compares Parliament and the Supreme Court and examines the relationship between them. Parliament may still be a great institution, but its members are no longer great men. How long can a great institution remain great in the hands of small men? The SC has held its place in the public esteem rather better than the Lok Sabha, despite the occasional allegation of financial impropriety. Parliament, the...