-The Economic Times His company's software has, over the decades, enabled legions of Indian youth to become computer engineers, and helped the country lay claim to IT superpower status. With luck, his fortune now may help the country achieve something much more basic. The global charity founded on the fortune of software billionaire Bill Gates is joining hands with the Indian government to improve sanitation in rural areas where nearly 60% of...

The marginalisation of tribals in the last few decades has been enormous. Tribals have lost out in agriculture, and their forests also stand depleted, writes KD Singh In 2006, the Prime Minister described the Maoist threat as “the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by the country” and suggested development in insurgency-affected regions as the key remedy. In 2009, the Union Government announced a new nationwide initiative, the ‘Integrated Action...

After the public outcry over the controversial Rs 28 a day poverty formulation, the Planning Commission has put the poverty debate in a deep freeze with the government setting up yet another expert group to take a relook at the existing methodology to determine the number of poor in the country. The decision, taken under public pressure, can be interpreted as rejection of the Tendulkar Committee report based on which the...

In a Bangladeshi folk story, a disabled grandfather is carried by his son in a basket, to be abandoned in the forest. On seeing this, the grandson calls out, 'Father, please be sure to bring back the basket. I will need it when you grow old'. Three thousand ageing men and women gathered in Delhi in the blazing midsummer heat to demand a universal pension for all aged people, not...

Empower school principals to truly deliver education to India The Right to Education (RTE) law, and the subsequent Supreme Court judgment, has focused attention on the future of school education in India. The judgment on the provision that requires private schools to offer 25 per cent of their seats to economically weaker sections opens new opportunities for the poor, and that is welcome. But in our fiercely hierarchical society, class-conscious...