You know your negotiating strategy is in trouble when countries ranging as far as Norway in the developed world to partners like South Africa and neighbours like Bangladesh start quoting Gandhi and Nehru back to you. Two months ago, this was the unfortunate situation Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan had to face at the Durban conference on climate change. That she managed, through a passionate last-minute speech, to ensure that all was...

How our dismal education scene is linked to our intolerance What’s common to the Salman Rushdie episode, India’s dismal educational scenario—as underlined by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Pratham’s 7th Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER)—and its appalling ranking on the Global Hunger Index (GHI)? It’s clear even on the surface: a deep disconnect between India’s claims on democratic superpower status and its grim reality. If you probe...

Pratham's seventh Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) of rural India released on Monday tells a similar tale: rising enrolment but declining attendance, over-reliance on private tuitions, decline in reading and mathematical ability of children in the age group between six and 14. The report was released by HRD minister Kapil Sibal. Use of computer is also on the rise in upper primary schools. Almost a third (30.8%) of upper primary...

The lesson for India after Durban is that it needs to formulate an approach that combines attention to industrialised countries’ historical responsibility for the problem with an embrace of its own responsibility to explore low carbon development trajectories. This is both ethically defensible and strategically wise. Ironically, India’s own domestic national approach of actively exploring “co-benefits” – policies that promote development while also yielding climate gains – suggests that it...

One of the great achievements of India is our free and vibrant press. This is an accomplishment of direct relevance to the working of democracy. Authoritarianism flourishes not only by stifling opposition, but also by systematically suppressing information. The survival and flowering of Indian democracy owes a great deal to the freedom and vigour of our press. There are so many occasions when, sitting even in Europe or in America,...