Over 55,000 women die due to child birth in India every year. Of the total children born in one year, a mind boggling 13 lakh die before they reach their first birthdays, most of them within a few weeks of entering this world. Another indicator that the world watches is how many children cannot survive beyond five years of age. In India every year, over 16 lakh under-5 years children...

Eleven years ago, Muturkham forests, lying southeast of capital Ranchi, used to be the timber mafia’s busy workplace. No different from the rest of the state, which has lost 50% of forest cover to illegal logging in the last 10 years. Until 1999, when Muturkham’s jungle mafia met ‘Lady Tarzan’. Jamuna Tuddu, 32, a short and stout woman belonging to the Santahl tribe who had studied till Class X, led a...

Agriculture sector undergoes a historic change as livestock surpasses the economy of food grain Policy makers in India are finally acknowledging a structural shift in the agriculture sector they have been noticing for a decade. Economic contribution of livestock is today more than that of food grain crops. Traditionally, of the three components of the sector—crops, livestock and fisheries—crops drove the growth, and food grains are a major part of it....

-The Economist   Opposition to the world’s biggest biometric identity scheme is growing FOR a country that fails to meet its most basic challenges—feeding the hungry, piping clean water, fixing roads—it seems incredible that India is rapidly building the world’s biggest, most advanced, biometric database of personal identities. Launched in 2010, under a genial ex-tycoon, Nandan Nilekani, the “unique identity” (UID) scheme is supposed to roll out trustworthy, unduplicated identity numbers based on...

-The Economist   A huge identity scheme promises to help India’s poor—and to serve as a model for other countries INDIA’S economy might be thriving, but many of its people are not. This week Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, said his compatriots should be ashamed that over two-fifths of their children are underfed. They should be outraged, too, at the infant mortality, illiteracy, lack of clean drinking water and countless other curses that...