In a bid to curb the unprecedented loss of the world's species due to human activity – at a rate some experts put at 1,000 times the natural progression – the United Nations is marking 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity, with a slew of events highlighting the vital role the phenomenon plays in maintaining the life support system on Planet Earth. “Humans are part of nature's rich diversity...

Copenhagen showed how fast and far India has traveled geo-politically. The same, alas, cannot be said about the health of the nation. On the international stage, India’s relentless focus on equity made us proud. The time has come to apply that principle at home. India’s ailing health delivery system is viewed as a worthy but dull topic on a normal day in a typical newsroom in the country. Typically, such neglected...

The Indian economy should recover from the recession caused by the global meltdown. India’s exposure to the world economy is quite limited. It is mainly through the exports market and partly through foreign investment flows either as equity or debt capital that financed private investment. The extent of the dependence, however, is quite low. The recession in the exports market affects only few sectors, such as textile and labour-intensive manufactures...

Poverty is a multi-dimensional concept. Official statistics in India have always referred, arguably narrowly, to only income poverty (using the proxy measure of consumption expenditure from the NSSO surveys).The Suresh Tendulkar Committee report submitted to the Planning Commission is the latest input to the “Great Indian Poverty Debate”. While the increase in the number of poor households, as suggested by the Tendulkar Committee, may indeed help expand the coverage of...

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE) remains on paper today; four months after it secured presidential assent. This, after the Human Resource Development Ministry flagged its passage by Parliament as one of its achievements in the first 100 days of the second edition of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. Allocation And, from all indications, the RTE — the law to operationalise the Fundamental Right...