Mokhada, Maharashtra: In the last 15-16 years, Jhaluriben Baria has had eight children, two of whom died within five days of their birth. Her youngest child Heera Gopabhai Baria, a boy, is seven months old. The infant is ensconced in a plastic sack strung across two sticks at the entrance of their house in Panchyasan village in Devgadh Baria block of Dahod district, Gujarat. Playing alongside is his sister, Premilaben Baria....

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto turned classical capitalism on its head with his trickle-up theory: that if you create wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, it will find its way up. de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on the need for the poor to be able to participate in the global economy...

The Supreme Court on Monday deferred its hearing on appeals against construction of Nirma Ltd’s cement plant near Mahuva’s coastline and asked the Gujarat High Court to dispose of the review petition filed by the farmers. Requesting the high court for speedy hearing of the review petition, a bench comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justices KS Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar has kept hearing on appeals after four weeks. A division...

Seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have plunged into a government effort to clean the Ganga, promising to recommend a slew of river management and technology strategies to improve its ecological health. The 2500km Ganga is one of the country’s most polluted rivers laced with sewage and city waste although the government has spent about Rs 900 crore over the past two decades on a clean-up plan initiated in the late-1980s. An...

India has been lauded for its remarkable overall economic growth of over 8% over the last five years. But despite this high and relatively stable growth, India's underbelly is soft. The agriculture sector is performing below expectations, with growth rate of around 2.8%, it is way below the Eleventh Plan target of 4%. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that 22% of India's population is undernourished. Child malnutrition is...