Recently there has been considerable media discussion about the issue of rise in prices of essential commodities and the problem of food inflation. In a country like India, where the cost of food forms major part of the monthly or daily expenditure incurred by an average family, this is a debate which acquires poignant significance. This is a government that came into power based on a concern for and commitment...

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency. Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years...

India must resist developed country pressure to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, goes the cry. Such a position helps only the rich, in a tearing hurry to grow richer, the environment be damned. It is in the interest of India’s poor for the country to adopt a stringent policy regime to control emissions domestically and thus contribute to a binding deal to cut emissions globally. Climate change has been identified...

A simple and strictly local power generation system has proved that rural Indian communities are willing and able to pay for reliable electricity.  Some seven years ago, two young men, chums from their days at boarding school, chatted over the Internet about what they might do for villages in their home state of Bihar. The company they went on to create has begun establishing small power plants driven by gases...

The widening chasm between India and Bharat is perhaps best reflected in the manner in which electricity is consumed. The neon-lights of Mumbai and Delhi beckon many with their glitter, but large swathes of territory across the country literally remain in the dark more than six decades after political independence. The government remains obsessed till today with building mega power projects — even our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had second...