To import rice or not? That is the question to which the government does not seem to have a clear-cut answer. Senior ministers have been losing no opportunity to talk about importing rice, citing the monsoon-induced shortfall in production as the reason. Somewhat contrarily, they have also been asserting that the government has enough stock of rice and there is no need for any worry about a supply shortage, but...

Twenty-five years ago this week, a gas leak at a Union Carbide chemicals plant in Bhopal released 40 tonnes of poisonous gases over the Indian city, killing thousands and injuring tens of thousands. To this day, many of the survivors live in crowded shacks in the slums that line the old factory walls. The people here are not the only ones who have been affected, however. The leak, which is often...

BANGALORE: Child Rights and You (CRY) held a “Public Hearing” on equal education to all here on Friday, as part of their nationwide campaign inviting people to sign a charter to the Government asking for three amendments to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. The charter demands that children below six years, as well as between 15 to 18 years are included in the main...

One of the standout features of the monetary stimulus in India has been the wide divergence between the RBI’s policy rates and the actual lending rates of banks — the latter haven’t fallen nearly as much as the RBI would have liked. On Wednesday, Governor Subbarao ticked Indian banks off for the stickiness and non-transparency in lending rates and urged them to get out of the mindset which has led...

FIVE HOURS’ bus ride from Kolkatta, just past the railway crossing at Beldanga, is a dilapidated concrete structure covered in half-torn posters variously advertising a Marxian utopia, films for red-blooded adults and bedroom advice for couples intent on children. Inside, in a tiny, dank room behind a desk, sits someone the Queen of England knows by name – and you should too. Lanky, awkward and at 16, the possessor of...