The key message of the book is that agriculture in South Asia is quite heavily stressed due to A complex set of socio-economic, agro-climatic, and hydrological factors WATER, AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABLE WELL-BEING: Edited by Unai Pascual, Amita Shah, Jayanta Bandyopadhyay; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 750. “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less...

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere with a Gujarat High Court judgment dismissing a petition which challenged land acquisition by the State government for the Tata Motors’ Nano project at Surendranagar. Rejecting the public interest litigation petition filed by the NGO, Rashtriya Kisan Dal represented by H.K. Thaker, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan asked him: “You don’t want industrialisation of Surendranagar? Gujarat is the second most industrialised State.”...

CITIES MAKE one simple promise to newcomers: Sacrifice yourself to me and your children shall prosper. This promise drew Ahmed Raza, a small-time wrestler from an Uttar Pradesh village and millions like him to the capital of newly-independent India. Raza kept his part of the bargain, yet half a century later, his daughter was pushed out of the city her father helped build, the only home she has known. “I...

The government appears to have taken a final call going into the climate change summit at Copenhagen that India’s traditional stand, that developing countries are not obliged to cut emissions, is unlikely to change. Yet there remains considerable wiggle room available to India’s negotiators. The temptation, however, to keep that wiggle room as large as possible, at the cost of atmospherics going in, must be avoided. The government for a...

This small and readable book is a layperson’s introduction to India’s economic catastrophe. Since many people believe in an ongoing economic miracle, such views are often dismissed as doomsday talk. But it is better to be aware of reality than to live in an illusion. The title is apt—Bhaduri offers us an unsettling vision of what awaits us if we continue along the current path. He alerts us to the...