All speakers addressing the main session of the World Water Week in Sweden during 5-11 September were presented with a beautifully wrapped bottle of tap water! Yes, you heard right: tap water from Stockholm. It is a symbol of achievement that the Swedes love to flaunt—and rightly so. It is also the best gift the Indian government can give to all Indians in general, and particularly those 500-odd million that live...

Activist and academic Raj Patel’s profile proudly notes that he has worked for the World Bank and the WTO, and protested against them both around the world. A visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley’s Centre for African Studies, Patel’s latest offering to the literary world—The Value of Nothing—is a New York Times bestseller. In an interview with Ashish Kumar Sen, Patel says beating the drum of India...

The rural non-farming sector has been growing faster than that of the urban since early 1970s, says a report. The report on "Comparative growth between non-farming Economy of rural and urban area" by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) said the share of rural non-farming Economy in rural gross domestic product (GDP) has increased from 28 percent in 1970-71 to 46 percent in 1999-2000. It said...

Climate change and global food shortages could bring unexpected benefits for British farmers in the next two decades, ultimately relieving taxpayers of the burden of subsidising them, Caroline Spelman, environment secretary, has claimed. Ms Spelman said the UK was unlikely to suffer the severe water shortages that scientists predict will afflict other parts of the world, and that British farmers should be able to exploit greater demand for their produce. “Countries that...

India’s monsoon rains were 19% above normal in the week to 15 Sept., the weather office said on Thursday, feeding concern cotton and groundnut harvests could be further delayed in Asia’s third-largest Economy. “The monsoon withdrawal is unlikely at least in the next couple of days,” said a senior official of the weather office who did not wish to be named. Rains had already exceeded averages by 26% in the previous week. Signs...