Eleven months after B. Ramalinga Raju, the former chairman of Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer Services, confessed to masterminding a $1.2 billion fraud at Indias fourth largest I.T. outsourcing company, the dirt is still tumbling out. On Nov. 24, the country's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) released findings that show the alleged fraudulent accounting and embezzlement was far larger than originally thought. Raju and nine accomplices skimmed some $2.5 billion from the...

Making a virtue out of the inevitable would appear to be the way forward in climate change negotiations. After the US agreed to reduce aggregate emissions 17% over 2005 levels by 2025, and China agreed to reduce the carbon intensity of its growth (emissions per unit of output) by 40% on a voluntary basis, there is pressure on India to place its own emission reduction targets. India should oblige. It...

China's decision to unveil carbon emissions targets two weeks before the Copenhagen climate change summit has put pressure on India, a minister says. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said China's decision is a "wake-up call to India". India, like China previously, says it will not commit to cuts until developed nations also pledge to meet targets. China said this week it aimed to reduce its "carbon intensity" by 40-45% by the...

India should insist that developed nations take the lead with substantial emission reductions, in line with the IPCC recommendations. Any non-binding agreement committing all nations without distinction should be rejected.  It is a measure of the current state of global climate negotiations that the only point on which all nations are likely to agree is that the prospects of an agreement at Copenhagen are far from bright. The moral and...

An open collision of ideas about global warming at the release of the UNFPA report, “The State of World Population 2009” has generated enough heat to raise the tempers. (See the report’s URL below) While the Minister of Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, who released the report in New Delhi, agreed that the women of the world would be forced to bear the disproportionate burden of climate change, he questioned...