We Indians implicitly believe in India’s great past. Recently, that past has been given a statistical underpinning by Angus Maddison. To celebrate the beginning of the 21st century, Maddison wrote a book called The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. There he says that India was the world’s largest economy in the first millennium AD. It produced one-third of the world’s income in the first century, and 29 per cent in...

The near total political paralysis of one of India's largest states, Andhra Pradesh, over its proposed carve-up, raises fresh questions about how the world's largest democracy will handle questions of identity and territory in this young century. Telangana, the new state proposed, is not a fresh demand, but even as it seems closer than ever to materialising, it opens a Pandora's box in a vast country of over a billion...

Think environmentalists are stooges? You’re the unwitting recruit of a hugely powerful oil lobby.  The evidence of man-made global warming is unequivocal People behind climate denial campaigns know that their claims are untrue When you survey the trail of wreckage left by the climate emails crisis, three things become clear. The first is the tendency of those who claim to be the champions of climate science to minimise their importance. Those who...

European scientists cast doubt on whether oil alternatives can ever be sustainably produced in significant quantities.  Scientists at the European commission have cast doubt on whether biofuels could ever be produced sustainably in significant quantities, dealing a blow to the aviation industry, which sees such fuel as a key way to reduce its emissions. The researchers argue that the greenhouse gases emitted in making biofuel may well negate most of...

In a year of sparse rains and spiralling food prices, with hundreds of districts being officially declared as drought-hit, a rally by activists in the capital demands a Food Entitlements Act.  Perhaps the most vocal demands at the rally were those aimed at a complete revamp of the Public Distribution System (PDS), starting with universal — instead of targeted — coverage. Over 5,000 grassroots activists, agricultural workers, farmers, lawyers, doctors and...