When India  won its bid for the 2010 Commonwealth Games seven years ago, the event instantly became an emblem of national prestige. But as the country prepares to open the games on Sunday evening, an opportunity to burnish its global image has instead become a national embarrassment. The litany of problems plaguing the games — collapsed footbridges, filthy dorms, cartoonish corruption — have not only made headlines around the world....

India dropped two ranks to 67th among 84 developing countries in the International Food Policy Research Institute's annual " Global Hunger Index" for 2010. Even Sudan, North Korea and Pakistan rank higher than India. While the report, released on Monday, shows that the proportion of undernourished in India is decreasing, the worsening ranking indicates that other developing countries have done better in tackling hunger. India is home to 42% of the...

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MG-NREGA) has been in news mainly due to corruption or inefficiency. The country has spent close to Rs 40,000 crore this fiscal but a large number of urban middle class people and opinion leaders don’t know what to make of it. Cynicism apart, the rights-based scheme has proved to be a game-changer in rural India despite mixed success. The scheme has been relatively...

Chezi K. Ganesan looks every inch the high-tech entrepreneur, dressed in the Silicon Valley uniform of denim shirt and khaki trousers, slick smartphone close at hand. He splits his time between San Jose and this booming coastal metropolis, running his $6 million a year computer chip-making company. His family has come a long way. His grandfather was not allowed to enter Hindu temples, or even to stand too close to upper-caste...

Indian health officials have struggled to allay domestic concerns about dengue fever even as the country scrambles to finish construction projects in time for the Commonwealth Games, which will take place here in less than a month. India is expecting 8,000 athletes and team officials from 71 countries and territories for the games, which bring together nations that were formerly part of the British Commonwealth. Delays and allegations of corruption have...