-The Economist   The world’s population will reach 7 billion at the end of October. Don’t panic IN 1950 the whole population of the earth—2.5 billion—could have squeezed, shoulder to shoulder, onto the Isle of Wight, a 381-square-kilometre rock off southern England. By 1968 John Brunner, a British novelist, observed that the earth’s people—by then 3.5 billion—would have required the Isle of Man, 572 square kilometres in the Irish Sea, for its standing...

One week from now, the United Nations estimates, the world’s population will reach seven billion. Because censuses are infrequent and incomplete, no one knows the precise date—the US Census Bureau puts it somewhere next March—but there can be no doubt that humanity is approaching a milestone. The first billion people accumulated over a leisurely interval, from the origins of humans hundreds of thousands of years ago to the early 1800s. Adding...

Five days after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi accused Mayawati government in UP of mega-scale corruption in the centrally sponsored schemes, union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has shot off a letter to UP chief minister Mayawati citing a huge scam in the MNREGA scheme in the state. According to sources, Jairam has specifically mentioned seven districts Balrampur, Gonda, Mahoba, Sonbhadra, Sant Kabir Nagar and Mirzapur where central funds have...

The much-awaited National Food Security Bill will be introduced in the winter session of Parliament incorporating some major changes recommended by the National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas told The Hindu on Sunday that the council proposed coverage of the food security scheme from the present 45 per cent to an estimated 63 per cent...

It was once a sleepy hamlet with rolling stretches of barren land, little agricultural activity and hardly any economy to boast of. But the nuclear power project transformed Kudankulam drastically. There was a minor real estate boom, income levels rose and lifestyles changed. Today, in the place of a small vegetable shop is a market place selling a wide variety of vegetables. All that is set to be reversed.  The anti-nuclear...