Posco drops India project; Syria crisis 'worst since Rwanda'; Goldman Sachs profits double; India's 'defective development'; Dubai's 'smart court' campaign

1 Posco drops India project (Sameer Hashmi on BBC) South Korean firm Posco says it has scrapped a proposed steel project in the Indian state of Karnataka after delays and local opposition. The company said it had dropped the $5.3bn project in the state's Gadag area after protests against the acquisition of land for the plant. The decision is a blow to India's efforts to attract foreign investment. 

But Posco is proceeding with a planned $12bn plant in eastern Orissa state, which has faced similar protests. The firm blamed its decision to pull out of Karnataka on "the significant delay in the project and inability to get land in Gadag". Posco and Karnataka had signed the agreement three years ago and the plant, when completed, was to produce 6 million metric tons of steel a year with iron ore to be mined locally.

Earlier this month, the state government returned $10m to Posco that the firm had deposited as an initial payment for acquiring land for the plant. The much larger Posco project in Orissa has also faced stiff opposition from local people campaigning to save farmland and woodland. But the land acquisition for the project has been completed, and the plans to build the plant are on track. The Orissa plant, which will be based in the port city of Paradip, was conceived in 2005 and is India's single biggest foreign investment. It is expected to create nearly 50,000 jobs.

2 Syria crisis ‘worst since Rwanda’ (BBC) The conflict in Syria has caused the world's worst refugee crisis for 20 years, with an average of 6,000 people fleeing every day in 2013, the UN says. UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres said refugee numbers had not risen "at such a frightening rate" since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

He was speaking to the UN Security Council, which also heard that 5,000 people are being killed each month.UN aid chief Valerie Amos said at least 6.8 million Syrians needed urgent help. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are locked in a fierce battle with opposition fighters for control of the country. There has been deadlock at the UN Security Council over the crisis, with Russia and China refusing to back action against Mr Assad proposed by the other veto powers, the US, Britain and France.

3 Goldman Sachs profits double (Dominic Rushe in The Guardian) Goldman Sachs doubled its profits in the second quarter as the bank benefited from gains in fixed income, currency and commodity trading revenue. The Wall Street giant set out its latest quarterly earnings, announcing net income of $1.93bn, compared with $962m a year earlier. Net revenue, including net interest income, rose 30% to $8.61bn from $6.6bn last year.

The bank said it had set aside $3.7bn for compensation and benefits – including bonuses – in the second quarter, 27% higher than the second quarter of 2012. Goldman said the increase reflected "a significant increase in net revenues". "The firm's performance was solid especially in the context of mixed economic sentiment during the quarter," said Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer. Goldman Sachs ranked first worldwide in investment banking in the quarter.

4 India’s ‘defective development’ (Madeleine Bunting in The Guardian) There are plenty of reasons for satisfaction for Amartya Sen as he approaches his 80th birthday. Few intellectuals have combined academic respect and comparable influence on global policy. But Sen doesn't do satisfaction. He does outrage expressed in the most reasonable possible terms. What he wants to know is where more than 600 million Indians go to defecate.

"Half of all Indians have no toilet. In Delhi when you build a new condominium there are lots of planning requirements but none relating to the servants having toilets. It's a combination of class, caste and gender discrimination. It's absolutely shocking. Poor people have to use their ingenuity and for women that can mean only being able to relieve themselves after dark with all the safety issues that entails," says Sen, adding that Bangladesh is much poorer than India and yet only 8% don't have access to a toilet. "This is India's defective development."

His new book, an Uncertain Glory, co-written with his long-time colleague Jean Drèze, is a quietly excoriating critique of India's boom.It's the 50% figure which – shockingly – keeps recurring. Fifty per cent of children are stunted, the vast majority due to undernourishment. Fifty per cent of women have anaemia for the same reason. In one survey, there was no evidence of any teaching activity in 50% of schools in seven big northern states, which explains terrible academic underachievement.

"There are reasons for India to hang its head in shame. Alongside the success, there have been gigantic failures," says Sen. "India will prick up its ears when comparisons with China are made, but the comparison is not just tactical. China invested in massive expansion of education and healthcare in the 70s so that by 1979, life expectancy was 68 while in India it was only 54." Sen and Drèze's argument is that these huge social investments have proved critical to sustaining China's impressive economic growth. Without comparable foundations, India's much lauded economic growth is faltering.

Even more stark is the comparison with Bangladesh. "Our hope is that India's public policymakers will be embarrassed by the comparison with Bangladesh. On a range of development indicators such as life expectancy, child immunisation and child mortality, Bangladesh has pulled ahead of India despite being poorer.'

Drèze and Sen conclude in their book that India has "some of the worst human development indicators in the world" and features in the bottom 15 countries, along with Afghanistan, Yemen and Pakistan. Seven of the poorest Indian states account for the biggest concentration of deprivation on the globe.

5 Dubai’s ‘smart court’ campaign (Khaleej Times) Dr. Ahmed Saeed bin Hazeem, General Manager of Dubai Courts has stated that the Dubai Courts aims to collect 10,000 ideas or suggestions in order to develop and improve services and procedures via smartphone applications. This will be achieved through the ‘Smart Court’ campaign, under the slogan ‘Your Suggestions Make the Future’.

Bin Hazeem said that the campaign primarily targets those working in the judiciary and legal field in Dubai, as well as staff of the Dubai Government, lawyers, experts, students of law schools, and those who have skills that would particularly benefit the campaign. The aim is to conceive as many creative ideas as possible, which will contribute to the upgrading of work and performance in Dubai Courts, along with the development and improvement of services and procedures via smartphone applications.

The ‘Smart Court’ campaign has been launched to achieve the vision of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who said, “We want our citizens to engage in the everyday business of government, and access government services via their mobile phones. The joy of existence is to do something one has not done before, or did not expect to do at all. Therefore we are eagerly anticipating our citizens’ creativity.”