Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94. His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which Samuelson helped build into one of the world’s great centres of graduate education in economics. In receiving the Nobel Prize in 1970, Samuelson was credited with transforming his discipline from...

  A new report by Save the Children, a global child rights organization, says that climate change is the biggest global health threat to children in the 21st century. Titled Feeling the Heat: Child Survival in a Changing Climate (2009), published in advance of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, the report examines the vulnerabilities regarding climate change and identifies the adaptation measures that can be taken...

A possible link between hydraulic fracturing and pollution of groundwater supplies causes concern.  Environmental groups contend that governments have been slow to react and are not looking hard for contamination Gas companies use at least 260 types of chemicals, many of them toxic, during the hydraulic fracturing process Victoria Switzer dreamed of a peaceful retirement. Instead, she is coping with a big hassle after a nearby natural gas well contaminated her family’s...

Despite a booming economy, nutrition deprivation among India’s children remains widespread.  “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” So begins the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established 60 years ago and celebrated today around the globe. This year’s theme is non-discrimination. When it comes to nutrition, all of India’s children are not equal. According to India’s third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) of 2005-06, 20...

Even a cursory glance at the daily newspaper reveals the economic mindset and the manipulation of that mindset into losing its sense of balance and well-being by the plethora of reports, articles and stories on the economic life of the Indian nation. There are all sorts of stories, statistics, credit appraisals, banking trends, FDI investment couched in the jargon of the modern economy that, curiously enough, seems to be so...