-AFP JOHANNESBURG: Foreign farms are spreading across Africa to grow food and biofuels for global markets, bringing much-needed investments but also new troubles for a continent struggling to feed itself.  China, Malaysia, Singapore and Bangladesh are just some of the countries spending billions of dollars in what critics have dubbed a new "scramble for Africa", a reference to Europe's 19th century colonisation drive.  But Africa holds an estimated 60 percent of the world's...

A war of words has erupted between the chief ministers of Bihar and Gujarat. Bihar's chief minister Nitish Kumar has slammed Narendra Modi for taking potshots at the state's slow socio-economic growth. The altercation began with Modi saying that caste politics has ruined states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Hitting back, Nitish has said that Modi should look at the conditions in his own state before criticising others. For the last...

Of late, a childhood friend's 80-year-old mother has taken to writing. Emboldened by her single-mindedness, memories dulled by a lifetime of contingencies now respond readily to the daily rustle of pen on paper. One memory stands out in Surjit Kaur's mind. In 1957, as a fresh eyed schoolteacher from Delhi she went on an educational tour to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. It was 10 years after Independence...

-The New York Times India's coalition government just celebrated the third anniversary of its tenure with a self-congratulatory banquet that could not have been more poorly timed: India's currency, the rupee, is falling; investment is down; inflation is rising; and deficits are eating away at government coffers. While short-term growth has slowed but not ground to a halt, India's problems have dampened hopes that it, along with China and other non-Western economies,...

Here’s a “growth story” that Standard and Poor’s missed: a piece of official statistics shows good old India has grown — literally. Over 5,000sqkm of wasteland has been converted into “net” usable terrain between 2005 and 2008, according to the Wasteland Atlas of India that was released today. Even Bengal, pilloried for profligacy and other wasteful pastimes, has done its modest bit to transform wasteland. But the big battles against barren land...