-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Drive to any Indian city. Chances are you will wade into chaotic traffic and roads full of potholes. You'll see choked drains, overflowing and smelly bins and streetlights that don't work. The reason for the mess isn't difficult to unravel. Most of our municipal bodies are cash strapped, unable to take care of the city's needs. The workforce is poor. Given the indifferent reputation of urban...

-The Times of India There's a new trend of chief ministers, particularly those with national ambitions, aggressively peddling their respective 'development models'. Interestingly, CMs from the same party at times indulge in one-upmanship. The question is: How are people in their states actually faring? How does one know whether one 'model' is better than another? One way is to look at how much a person spends on an average every month;...

-The Hindu Kathmandu: Greater cooperation is necessary to protect the fragile ecology of the Himalayas, the world's youngest mountains facing unprecedented human encroachment, concluded the team of Nepali and Indian journalists and researchers that gathered in Kathmandu on Monday to assess the disaster brought by the floods last month. The programme, titled "Ganga-Mahakali catchment disaster" was organised by the Nainital-based People's Association for Himalaya Area Research (Pahar) and the Kathmandu-based Himal Southasian...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Chhapra tragedy must ask us how we can improve public services, not scrap them altogether. In the aftermath of the ghastly tragedy in Chhapra, Bihar, where 22 children lost their lives after they consumed a government-provided school meal containing organophosphate pesticides, we must demand of the State a far greater commitment to administering large-scale welfare programmes that are meant to improve, not destroy the life of citizens....

-The Economic Times Over a year ago, I had written a piece, Quo Vadis, Indian Pharma? (ET, May 11, 2012), in this column. Some key issues were highlighted in the article. Perhaps it is time to revisit the subject and bring out some current issues. Price control: Hurray, the department of pharmaceuticals has come out with a new non-intrusive price control methodology, moving from the cost-based model to the average market price...