LONDON-based Vedanta Resources is planning to invest $15 billion in the mining sector in India and Africa by 2010. Vedanta Resources executive chairman Anil Agrawal told ET that the company is planning to become the largest producer of metals in the world. "We are targeting at achieving the 1 million tonnes per annum production capacity in copper and zinc while in Aluminium, where we have already touched the magical 1 million figure, we are trying to scale it up to 3 million tonnes per annum,' he said.

pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is recalling its malaria drug Lapdap and has discontinued development of another malaria drug, Dacart, saying the drugs can lead to anaemia in some patients.

Enlarge View   an international research team has provided the first scientific evidence that deadly emerging diseases have risen steeply across the world,

Food scientists are meeting in Cusco, Peru, this week to find ways of boosting world potato production to ease the strain of surging cereal prices on the world's poorest countries. Potato production already reached a record high last year as cereal prices rose, partly as a consequence of grain producers - such as the US - switching to bio-fuel crops. The impact of more expensive cereals has been harshest on developing countries that are dependent on imports.

In Africa, hard-hit by HIV, the proportion of TB drug-resistance is no less alarming. In former Soviet Union, almost half of all TB cases are resistant to at least one anti-TB drug -Bobby Ramakant