-The Economic Times The April 28, 2012, issue of The Economist has a story on India's solar power and mentions Charanka village in Patan district, Gujarat. Solar energy can be converted into electricity, using photovoltaics, or can be converted into heat. (There are other technologies too, but those aren't important yet.) So far, solar thermal, or heating, in India has essentially meant solar cookers and water heaters, though it needn't stay that...

-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...

To lose bank guarantees for its four power plants in Rajasthan The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has found Lanco Infratech guilty of false commissioning of solar power plants in Rajasthan. The company will now lose its first set of bank guarantees for the remaining four solar photovoltaic plants in Rajasthan. It has already lost bank guarantees of three other plants being set up in the state after...

Funding agency for rural NGOs may be on its last legs IT IS a government agency that was set up specially to fund non-profits working on rural development. But of late the Council for People’s Action and Advancement of Rural Technology (CAPART) has been plagued by allegations of corruption and inefficiency. After a few failed attempts to reform CAPART, the government has now decided to overhaul the agency which has close...

-The Times of India   Lanco, the company accused by Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) of illegitimately cornering contracts worth Rs 13,000 crore under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar mission, has objected to the allegations and said "they were not crosschecked with the company and were wrongly perceived".  In a statement made to TOI, A Narasimhan, senior vice-president (corporate communications), said, "Lanco Group has equity participation in few of the companies...