MOLASUR, INDIA — It was Pongal a couple weeks ago, the Tamil harvest festival, and villages around here were alive with temple music and firecrackers. Tractors were scrubbed down, shiny, and cows were decked out in flowers. Pongal is a joyful holiday, a time of thanksgiving. For three days, the countryside was in a festive mood. The monsoons have been abundant this year. Village tanks are overflowing. Fields are green with...

That the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer is slowly mending is considered a big victory for environmental policymakers. But in a new report, scientists say there is a downside: Its repair may contribute to global warming. It turns out that the hole led to the formation of moist, brighter-than-usual clouds that shielded the Antarctic region from the warming induced by greenhouse gas emissions over the last two decades, scientists...

At least two cases of hunger deaths have been reported from Jabalpur district of MP and Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan in the past few weeks. The two states are run by different political parties-- the BJP and the Congress-- but there is quite a lot common in the victims’ circumstances. Both families were among the poorest in their villages but were not included in the BPL list and both the...

A section of the media seems to be mighty impressed with Bihar’s miraculous (11.03%) average annual growth during the 2004-05 to 2008-09, supposedly akin to that of Gujarat (11.05%) but is there a catch in this stunning statistics? (See the graph below). While the media has quoted the Gross State Domestic Product at factor cost (at constant 1999-2000 prices) as provided by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO), but the corresponding...

The New Year began with very good news about the Indian economy. During the last five years, 2004 to 2009, India’s most backward states have shown remarkable growth. Bihar, which grew at 4.5 per cent a year between 2001 and 2005, showed a growth rate of 11.3 per cent between 2005 and 2009. Similarly, Odisha increased its growth performance from 4.94 to 8.74 per cent between these two periods; Jharkhand...