With the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka going to get a tiger reserve status, the Soligas living there face imminent eviction.NEVER before have the tigers of the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary burned so bright, either in popular imagination or in administrative priority. With the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests approving “in principle” the status of a tiger reserve for the BRT sanctuary, the endangered cat has taken...

Continuing with its trend towards moderation, inflation declined to 7.48 per cent in November, mainly boosted by lowering of pressure on certain food items.Inflation had stood at 8.58 per cent in October. It was 4.50 per cent in November 2009. For September this year, the inflation figure has been revised upwards to 8.93 per cent from the provisional number of 8.62 per cent.This is the fourth consecutive month when the...

Appreciating the country's commitment towards universalising health coverage for the people, health economist Robert Yates has said the country needs to increase its public spending on health either by health insurance schemes or taxation.“The entire exercise of constituting a high-level expert group on universal health coverage that India has undertaken has been done at an appropriate time when the Economy is growing and the country is getting wealthier as a...

The CPI(M) today said the government has "no mandate" to negotiate the Indo-European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA) without consulting Parliament and political parties as it would adversely affect the Economy and large sections of the people. Maintaining that negotiations on FTA "till date have been conducted under a veil of secrecy", it claimed that the Government has in the past signed agreements that "affect large sections of the people adversely...

Chief minister Arjun Munda has urged bankers and financial institutions to join hands with the state administration to launch a water conservation campaign to prevent a third consecutive drought in Jharkhand next year.Addressing officials of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) today at a meet on the bank’s credit plan for 2011-12, Munda said recurrent droughts had upset the state’s Economy. He admitted the farmers were going through...