It is estimated that India lost 1.8 million children under five in 2008. That is more than 200 child deaths every hour, each day, or more than three deaths every minute. Out of about 25 million babies born every year in India, one million die. Most who survive do not get to grow up and develop well. About 48 per cent are stunted (sub-normal height) and 43 per cent are...

India needs sustainable political and governance reform, not 'Mr India'-type prime-time populism Anna Hazare got his timing right, as Kumar Ketkar, a distinguished journalist from Mumbai, put it. Considering this was obviously planned as a television-based mobilisation of middle-class India, pitching it between the cricket World Cup and the Indian Premier League series was perfect timing. Even as Mr Hazare fasted, a large number of his supporters joined him between meals,...

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar recently alleged that Monsanto, the Union environment ministry’s genetic engineering approval committee (GEAC) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had colluded to start trials of genetically modified maize in Bihar before clearance from the environment ministry and the state government. The charge is significant: Nitish says ICAR’s experimental farms in Bihar did not maintain the stipulated “isolation distance” from normal farmland, meant to...

A proposed government move to regulate content on blogs has ignited a firestorm of protest from the blogging community which is accusing the government of restricting free speech and acting like the guardians of a police state. At the heart of the issue is the Indian IT Act which was amended in 2008 to incorporate the much-needed changes to clarify the legal position of intermediaries or those who provide web-hosting...

This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order...