India aims at bringing United States back on board at Cancun climate talks but has termed its offer on climate mitigation as “homeopathetic”. To clinch US, India has two proposals. First, which appeals to the United States, is on measurement review and verification (MRV) regime. India has proposed that nations, whose emissions are one% or more of the global average, should allow verification of their domestic mitigation commitments through a United...

Jharkhand is one of seven states of India having large number of illiterate persons. The other states, where large number of illiterate persons resides, are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Mrs. D. Purandeswari, the union Minster of state for Human Resource Development, informed rajya sabha during the winter session in reply to a member’s question from Mr. Parimal Nathwani. These seven states of India have as...

Often called Chanakya for his political astuteness, Engineer-politician Nitish Kumar blended his secularist ideology with pragmatic politics and combined the development plank with innovative social engineeering equations in Bihar to bask in glory yet again. Doing an encore after today's landslide victory, the 59-year-old chief minister with his trademark kurta pyjama and grey stubble has become RJD strongman Lalu Prasad's nemesis single handedly contributing to the electoral meltdown of RJD-led Secular...

Some people feel agriculture in India provides employment much beyond its capacity — that is, the number of people working on the farm is many times the actual requirement. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is among the proponents of this view. In his interaction with a group of editors last month, Singh said, “The only way we can raise our heads above poverty is for more people to be taken out of...

India's Public Distribution System (PDS) has been in a bad shape for decades, often thought to be beyond repair. Recent experience, however, suggests otherwise. Political will, increased transparency and community participation have led to an amazing revival of the PDS in Chhattisgarh though the state has only shown contempt for people's rights in other contexts… Somehow, the PDS became a political priority in Chhattisgarh and a decision was made to turn...