There’s no doubt about it, this is incredible India all right. Where else in the world would you get judges of a high court treating a deity as litigant in a legal case? And then, because the said deity, otherwise referred to as Ram Lalla in the judgment, is to be treated as a minor (was this the only reason He did not appear in court himself?) where else would...

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has highlighted that over 20% of the global population or 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity, which hinders economic and social development. Here in India, the grim reality is that almost half the population in rural areas has little or no supply of power. For long years, open-ended subsidies in power have mostly been diverted and usurped by the undeserving non-poor. Fortunately, social, managerial and...

The minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh’s order stopping Vedanta Aluminum Ltd and the Orissa Mining Corporation from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills to feed the company’s adjacent Lanjigarh aluminum refinery plant located in one of the country’s poorest districts in the name of tribal interest tends to miss the wood for the trees. It is based on the report of a four-member expert group under N C...

As dusk falls, the sound of children singing fills the air at the SOS Tibetan Children’s Village in Bylakuppe, five hours’ drive from Bangalore in southern India. Night descends on the tidy, stone-paved school campus carved out of the lush jungle. But darkness is dispelled when 20 solar-powered street lights on the campus begin to glow with a steady white light. Thirty dormitories set among groves of coconut palm trees are...

Bolangir district in Orissa, facing drought conditions since 1965, sees an annual mass migration of farmers to other States in search of work. SURESH GOHIR of Bhotapada village in the backward Bolangir district of Orissa consumed pesticide two years ago after his paddy crop failed. He survived the suicide attempt but found life doubly difficult as debt had mounted. Suresh was forced to migrate to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in search of...