NEW DELHI: Ministers of South Africa, Brazil, China and India - the BASIC group - will meet here on February 13-14 to chalk out a joint strategy for the post-2020 global climate regime. The meeting of the group, which was the most prominent block of countries at Durban talks along with the EU, comes weeks ahead of the deadline to make submissions to the UN on the framework for negotiations for the new regime, Durban Platform.

NEW YORK: Bidders will be able to buy fine art, a vacation in the Maldives, or an internship with designer Donna Karan and help the planet at the same time in Christie's annual Green Auction, which is expected reap millions for environmental causes. Proceeds from the third annual auction on April 11, which raised nearly a combined $5 million its first two years, will benefit four environmental charities -- Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Central Park Conservancy and Conservation International.

After more than two decades of drilling in Antarctica, Russian scientists have reached the surface of a gigantic freshwater lake hidden under miles of ice for some 20 million years, a lake that may hold life from the distant past and clues to search for life on other planets. Reaching Lake Vostok is a major discovery avidly anticipated by scientists around the world hoping that it may allow a glimpse into microbial life forms, not visible to the naked eye, that existed before the Ice Age.

As government funds for sanitation are inadequate, the private sector should pool in. More people die from inadequate sanitation-related causes in India everyday than 10 aeroplanes filled with 200 people each. This has high economic costs. Therefore, achieving adequate sanitation is an imperative.

Investment and price assurance for farmers will yield the results that have eluded our policymakers so far. India has been striving to achieve 4% growth rate in farm output since the beginning of Ninth Five-Year Plan. However, actual growth rate has remained invariably lower than the targeted growth rate. Further, agriculture witnessed a sharp slowdown during mid-1990s to the middle of the first decade of 21st century. Annual growth rate in farm GDP declined to 2.4% a year during 1995-96 to 2004-05 from more than 3% in the previous decade.

China’s painstaking development of a low-cost, efficient energy solution for its commuters holds a lesson for India.

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Power is hopeful the government will allocate natural gas to operate its new 2,400-mw plant in Andhra Pradesh, where shortterm electricity prices have jumped to . 19 per unit, more than three times the national average, because of soaring demand and inadequate transmission network.

Sterlite Grid, L&T, Lanco Infratech, GMR Group, KEC in the race to bid. Power transmission firms are gearing up to bid for two much delayed transmission projects worth . 2,800 crore, which are likely to be awarded by March. After a lull of almost one year, activity in private-sector participation in power transmission has picked up and developers are keen to grab these projects as the ones awarded earlier have been concentrated mostly between Reliance Infrastructure and Sterlite Grid, which bagged four projects worth . 7,000 crore and three projects worth .

Apanel set up by the Supreme Court to investigate Karnataka’s illegal mining mess has made some important recommendations. It says 49 licences are patently illegal and should be scrapped. Another 72 mining companies should be fined for operating outside sanctioned areas. It also asks for Karnataka’s iron ore output to be capped at 30 million tonnes, down a third from its 45-million-tonne level till the court banned all mining in the state. These strictures are welcome: they could help restart mining in the state and bring Karnataka’s crony capitalism to heel.

Jindal Steel and Power, India’s biggest producer of the alloy by market value, plans to spend $300 million in developing new and existing mines in Africa. The move is part of the company’s strategy to source coal assets abroad to meet raw material demand of its steel and power plants at home. Jindal Africa, the company’s Africa subsidiary, would invest $250 million in developing a coalmine in Mozambique’s coal-rich Moatize region, Ashish Kumar, CEO of Jindal Africa, told ET on the sidelines of an international mining meet.