Indians believe that war and terrorism, global warming, pollution and over-population are the biggest problems facing the world. In contrast, people living in the United States and Britain, which are facing economic slowdown, feel that economic situation is a major global challenge. The findings were revealed on Tuesday by Sir Robert Worcester, founder of Mori, while launching King’s College London’s Global Index of Fear. The survey by Ipsos-Mori in eight countries —...

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, since 2003, one Indian farmer has committed suicide every 30 minutes. In 2008, 16,196 farmers took their own lives, bringing the total number of farmer suicides in India between 1997 and 2008 to 199,132. (Significantly, P. Sainath is of the opinion that like all government data, these figures too are unreliable. For when women farmhands kill themselves, their deaths are not enlisted as...

The other day, I met a few carpet manufacturers from Mirzapur who were fuming about the state of affairs there. “In spite of the best weaving wages that we’re able to pay, far too many weavers have now turned to other jobs,” one complained. The recession in the West led to a massive slowdown in carpet exports, reducing the number of orders for weavers. Many found alternative jobs under the...

The rapid growth of emerging economies has led to a shift in economic power: forecasts based on analysis by late economist Angus Maddison suggest that the aggregate economic weight of developing and emerging economies is about to surpass that of the countries that currently make up the advanced world. According to Perspectives on Global Development: Shifting Wealth, a new publication from the OECD Development Centre, the economic and financial crisis is...

The US on Tuesday rejected taking any action against the Union Carbide company for the world's worst industrial disaster that had left over 15,000 people dead and hoped the Indian court verdict in the Bhopal gas tragedy case would bring "closure to the victims". "With respect to Bhopal, obviously that was one of the greatest industrial tragedies and industrial accidents in human history. And let me just say that we...