The term “bottom of the pyramid” (BOP), coined by the late C K Prahalad, became wildly attractive in the early noughties, in part because the concept, which suggests that it is possible and legit to make money from the poor, provided a leavening justification for the animal SPIRits of capitalism in poor countries like India and China with their growing list of Forbes billionaires. On the verge of the second decade...

Several newspapers and TV channels, some of them among India’s biggest, have claimed credit for exposing the Adarsh society scam in which the who’s who of India’s defense and political establishment are involved. The scam exposes the nexus between bureaucrats, politicians and unscrupulous defense service officers. Obviously it wouldn’t be anyone’s ‘exclusive’ if so many newspapers and channels broke the news. Or else there would be one journalist who reported...

In 25 years, the Narmada Bachao Andolan has introduced an alternative development discourse in India. ON the full moon night in October, hundreds of people from all over India gathered at Bhilgaon, one of the many tribal villages in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra, in the foothills of the Satpura mountain range and on the banks of the river Narmada. The place resounded with jingles, revolutionary folk songs and strains of...

The agreement that was recently concluded at the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP-10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at Nagoya in Japan will go down in history as the second most important global initiative, after the CBD itself, in protecting the Earth’s fast-depleting biodiversity. This is vital for sustaining life on the planet. The ball was set rolling way back in 1992 with the adoption of the...

A solar device turning waste heat into electricity in rural China and an Ugandan business manufacturing stationery from agricultural waste are among the dozens of winners of a United Nations-backed sustainable development award, it was announced today. The Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development (SEED) Award recognizes promising new locally-driven enterprises that work to improve livelihoods, tackle poverty and manage the sustainable development of natural resources in developing countries. The SEED initiative...