New Delhi, May 23: The raised petrol prices and the untouched diesel reflect a disturbing trend that is pushing consumers towards private diesel vehicles and hurting the country’s environment, health and economy, analysts have said. The increase announced today will mainly jack up the fuel bills of owners of small cars and two-wheeler motorbikes, the analysts said, pointing out that most big cars, and virtually all of public transport, freight trucks and railways run on diesel.

Calcutta, May 22: The impasse over the expansion and modernisation of the SAIL’s IISCO Steel Plant at Burnpur appears to have been resolved with the company tacitly agreeing to give jobs to a set of aggrieved land-losers. The commissioning of the Rs 17,000-crore project — the biggest expansion initiative in Bengal — had been delayed for months as agitators had refused to relocate a deity (Jhorabudi) from the site as SAIL was not accepting their demand for jobs.

A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words. What better way then to raise awareness about malnutrition than asking children to express their thoughts on the topic by wielding the brush or crayons. Students of schools from across the city were invited to send drawings and paintings on malnutrition as part of the Horlicks Aahar Abhiyan project launched by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, in association with NGO Child In Need Institute (CINI), The Telegraph and Anandabazar Patrika to provide adequate and better nutrition to children aged three to six.

The state-run power distribution company has raised electricity tariff by 29 paise to Rs 5.82. The West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (WBSEDCL) today notified its fourth upward revision since December 30. With the latest hike coming into force with retrospective effect from the beginning of May, the average per unit tariff for the utility’s one crore-odd consumers has risen by Rs 1.55 in four-and-a-half months. The new tariff will be six paise less than the Rs 5.88 a unit charged by the CESC from its 25 lakh consumers in Calcutta and Howrah.

The Celsius soared to a season high of 40.5 degrees on Wednesday, prompting the weather office to sound the summer’s first heat-wave warning for Calcutta. The hottest day of the year so far was also the second hottest May day of the decade after a 42.1-degree scorcher on May 9, 2009. Only thrice in the past 10 years have May temperatures hit 40-plus in the city.

Calcutta, April 30: The Bengal government’s failure to acquire land for development projects came under the glare today at a meeting between National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) chairman A.K. Upadhyay and chief secretary Samar Ghosh. Upadhyay, who is also a secretary in the ministry of road transport and highways, had written to Ghosh on March 27 that several projects relating to the national highways had come to a halt in Bengal because of problems related to land acquisition. He had appended a list of such projects with his letter.

Labels on packaged foods may not always carry totally correct information, finds
Saheli Mitra

Do you know that a packet of instant noodles has over 60 per cent of your recommended daily salt intake or that a Happy Meal contains 90 per cent of your child's daily requirement of trans fats? Consumers are usually unaware of such facts since most companies in India don't bother to put such information on their labels. But a consumer has the right to know all these facts so that he or she can make an informed choice.

The National Green Tribunal may not even be a year old but it has already come up with some landmark judgments, says Prasun Chaudhuri

ON GUARD: A protest held earlier this month against Posco’s project in Odisha

The Bengal government today signed seven land lease agreements for 546 acres with industries involving an investment of over Rs 5,000 crore. The big names today included Matix Fertiliser, which is building a urea plant at Panagarh and TVS, which along with Mahabharat Motors, is building a two-wheeler manufacturing hub at Uluberia.

The meeting of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation today was the second round in the ongoing process of the 99 lease agreements that the Mamata Banerjee government is looking to sign with the industry.

New Delhi, April 17: If this doesn’t raise a national stink, little else will. Around 3.5 crore toilets are missing in India, if official statistics are not meant to be flushed down the drain. The Union rural development ministry claims its Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) has delivered more than 8.71 crore latrines to households across villages over the past decade. But household data from the population census shows that only around 5.16 crore households had latrines in 2011. (See chart)