U.S. support for Muhammad Yunus is so strong that Dhaka may find a negotiated settlement to protect the Nobel Laureate's image and the independence of the Grameen Bank. Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus's three-decades-long journey with microfinance was laborious. But he most certainly did not encounter a crisis like the one he is facing now. It was only in December 2010 that the Bangladeshi — who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with...

India should look at renewable energy to meet its power needs, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said. In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week, Ramesh drew his attention to a World Bank report on renewable energy in India. The report suggests that renewable energy is an important part of the solution to India's power shortage. The letter gains significance as the coal and power ministries have cited growth...

From the Prime Minister down, WikiLeaks has exposed the rotten state of the world's largest democracy for all to see. Food prices become intolerable for the poor. Protests against corruption paralyse Parliament. Then a series of American diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks exposes a brazenly mendacious and venal ruling class; the head of government adored by foreign business people and journalists loses his moral authority, turning into a lame duck. This...

The world population is estimated to reach nine billion by 2050. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that global food production needs to increase 70 per cent by 2050 compared to average 2005-07 levels to feed the rising global population. Clearly, a large part of the consumption will happen in India and China; which would require an additional 1.6 billion hectares of land to be brought into cultivation compared to...

The World Bank has approved $150 million in loan for India to accelerate implementation of its National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), which is aimed at transforming the service delivery system across the country. While this World Bank loan will not target specific services per se, it will initiate policy and institutional actions that will impact all the services. The loan will support NeGP - approved in May 2006 as a national programme -...