How do you quantify happiness in a diverse nation like ours? Growth levels, value-based structural changes, what can affect it? Life is Elsewhere?     Bhutan’s GNH: Based on the Buddhist doctrine of harmony with environment and fellow beings besides material comfort     UNDP Human Development Report: Ranks nations on quality of life—adjusted real income, life expectancy, education etc     World Values Survey: Started in 1995, it explores impact of social and political changes...

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has proposed social audits for the centre's big-ticket welfare programmes running under different ministries, on the lines of the scrutiny that he recently mandated for the flagship rural jobs scheme. "The concept has the potential to revolutionise the system. If we can have social audits for three-four major social sector schemes, it will change the way the country functions," Ramesh said. If the proposal is...

-The Economic Times   What should be the agenda for national renewal? Should we discuss what should be done in individual sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, energy, etc., and plead before the rulers of modern democracy to accept some of our suggestions or should we focus on the decision-making processes itself, which exist in governance today? Who takes decisions in our 'democracy'? Who influences these decisions? Are these processes really democratic? Is lack of...

-PTI Home Minister P Chidambaram has expressed concern over the data collection process of Unique Identification Authority of India saying there was real chance of inclusion of non-usual residents and creation of false profile in the project which may compromise internal security. In a letter to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Chidambaram said the process of the National Population Register being prepared by the Registrar General of India have been...

-The Telegraph The world is likely to get 10 times hotter in the next 90 years, a report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said. The report links the rise in temperatures to the “high greenhouse gas emission scenario” caused by human activity. It says intense drought, heavy precipitation and intensity of tropical cyclones are also likely to increase. Titled “Special Report on managing the risks of extreme events...