The Bikaner Development Authority Bill, 2025, passed by the Rajasthan Assembly, aims to establish a Bikaner Development Authority to regulate development activities in the Bikaner district. The bill was passed by voice vote, with the opposition Congress walking out of the House due to insufficient discussion. The bill was introduced …
ALARMED by the increasing level of environmental pollution in the country, and the failure of existing organisations in tackling the problem, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Environment has suggested levying pollution tax and shifting polluting smallscale units out of residential areas to industrial sectors. The 42-member committee, headed by Syed …
THREE months have passed since the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation adopted the Dhaka Declaration pledging to alleviate poverty drastically in the region. However, the United Nations University on South Asian Perspectives, in Colombo, says nothing much has been done. SAARC leaders propose to identify what more needs to …
THE MUCH-lauded Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) has failed as an instrument to transform rural India. And not all the high praise from the prime minister or the government's hiking of the JRY budget or the speedy enactment of the Panchayati Raj bill, ostensibly to empower village-level institutions, can mask this …
SONRAJ IN THE Uttar Pradesh village of Sonrai, water-starved residents eke out a living growing a single, rainfed crop of jowar or kodo (millet) on 500 sandy ha and by mining granite, phosphate or lead the rest of the time. The village averages 85 cm of rain annually, sufficient to …
I was talking the other day," said William Rogers to the other villagers gathered around the inn fire, 'to a gentleman about the place called Louvain, what the Germans have burnt down. He said he knowed it well - used to Wait a Belgian friend there. He said the house …
