Record growth over the last year pushed the UK green goods and services market past the £122bn mark, according to new government figures that reveal the low carbon economy now employs almost one million people.

The sector grew 4.7 per cent against the 2009/10 figure of £116.8bn, providing an additional £5.4bn of economic activity as green industries continued to defy the sluggish progress made by the rest of the economy.

NTPC Ltd, India’s biggest power producer, said it plans to spend as much as $15 billion (Rs 82, 521 crore) over a decade to secure overseas coal supplies as prices of the fuel tumble to a 19-month-low.

The utility may sign five- or 10-year contracts for the first time to import as much as 150 million metric tonnes of coal, Chairman Arup Roy Choudhury said by telephone from New Delhi on Tuesday.

Indian Oil Petronas Private Limited, a joint venture between Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Petronas Malaysia, is setting up an LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) import-export terminal at the Ennore Port. The new facility will have a tankage capacity of 30,600 tonnes and will attract an investment of around Rs 497.83 crore.

Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas R P N Singh informed the Lok Sabha that the IOC was proposing to set up an LNG (liquefied natural gas) import terminal at Ennore Port with storage and regasification facilities of 5 million metric tonne per annum capacity at an estimated cost of Rs 4,320 crore.

Pakistan will finally ink the gas deal with Turkmenistan in Ashgabad on May 23-24 under which it would start importing in 2016 the gas of 1.365 bcf per day under $ 7.6 billion TAPI gas line project at a cost of 70 per cent parity of crude oil at Multan and 50 percent of crude oil at Afghan border, a senior official told Pakistan Observer.

“A delegation headed by Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Husain on Sunday left for Turkmenistan to sign Gas Sales Purchase Agreement. India which is also part of the project will also sign its GSAP with Turkmestan.”

The United States imposed punitive tariffs on solar panel imports from China, the latest in a series of trade disputes between the world's two biggest economies and sparking accusations by Beijing of protectionism.

The new tariffs of around 30 percent, much bigger than had been expected, were set on Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department after it ruled in favor of local firms which said Chinese exporters were dumping cut-price panels on their market.

Agriculture output topped the target by 7 million tonnes last year, thanks to good monsoon
After clocking a record food grain production of over 252 million tonne in 2011-12, the government now targets 250 million tonne of production in the crop year of 2012-13.

The United States imposed punitive tariffs on solar panel imports from China, the latest in a series of trade disputes between the world's two biggest economies and sparking accusations by Beijing of protectionism.

The new tariffs of around 30 percent, much bigger than had been expected, were set on Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department after it ruled in favor of local firms which said Chinese exporters were dumping cut-price panels on their market.

Coal blocks given to private companies, estimated to be worth . 10.7 lakh crore in the national auditor’s draft report, were allocated impartially and in the interest of economic growth, the government said as it sought to limit the damage from a potentially adverse audit report.
The draft report, leaked in March, caused an uproar in Parliament as it said the allocation of 155 blocks between 2004 and 2009 give companies “undue benefits” of . 10.7 lakh crore.