-Open the Magazine   Villagers saw him cleaning his undergarments stained with goat blood and thought he had a sexual disease. But Arunachalam Muruganantham was only trying to make a smart, cheap sanitary pad for his wife I am perhaps the only man to have ever worn a sanitary napkin. I am the only man who understands what a woman endures during those days. The wetness. The discomfort. The constant fear of stains....

-Live Mint   Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh is advocating a new approach to fighting the Maoist insurgency that has gripped 78 districts so far. Apart from development and security, the approach involves politics and justice, he said. In an interview, Ramesh warned that in the rush to attain high growth rates, India was placing the interests of tribals below that of mining firms. The minister suggested the setting up of a...

I read Aman Sethi's piece on the Saranda Development Plan (“Nine months on, police camps sole development in Saranda plan”, June 4) with great interest but with greater anguish. Before I deal with his main charge — that private mining interests are behind the SDP — I want to lay out what the SDP is all about. It is the first systematic experiment in combining a security-oriented and development-focussed approach...

-The Times of India Asia and the Pacific is consuming more resources than its ecosystems can sustain, threatening the future of the region's beleaguered forests, rivers, and oceans as well as the livelihoods of those who depend on them, says a new joint report by the Asian Development Bank ( ADB) and WWF. The joint ADB-WWF study, Ecological Footprint and Investment in Natural Capital in Asia and the Pacific, focuses on ways...

When it comes to thrusting nuclear power down the throats of unwilling people, official India sets a record of violations of dignity and rights that is embarrassing. Which other government but India's maligns all anti-nuclear protesters as foreign-inspired and lacking any agency? Where else would the police file 107 FIRs against 55,795 peaceful anti-nuclear protesters, but at Koodankulam, charging 6,800 with "sedition" and "waging war against the State"? And which...