“India is Shining” in many ways, but the major hiccups in the run up to the Commonwealth Games (CWG), which opened on October 3 in New Delhi, highlight India's serious problems. Despite the colourful display of India's arts and culture at the grand opening ceremony, the frantic last minute interventions —including enlisting the Army (who did a remarkable job) to help with the final preparations — reveal the gross inefficiencies...
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New round of UN climate talks opens in China to prepare for year-end summit
A new round of UN climate talks opened in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Monday, which is expected to pave the way for the year-end Cancun summit in Mexico. About 3,000 delegates from party and observer countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol are attending the meeting on Oct. 4-9. They are expected to discuss the negotiating text reached at the Bonn talks in...
More »Pepsi collaborates with farmers for water conservation
PepsiCo India, the country’s leading food & beverage company, has announced the successful completion of its community water initiatives in Panipat, Haryana. The project has two legs—water recharge structures aimed at improving the water availability for the neighbouring community and direct seeding of paddy that helps reduce water consumption by one-third in paddy cultivation. According to company officials, the projects will benefit nearly 200 families in and around Panipat and save...
More »India’s first UID recipient returns to Rs 50-a-day life by Santosh Andhale
On Thursday, after a fortnight of photo-ops and hobnobbing with the most powerful people in the country, the first recipient of the unique ID card, Chhabadibai Sonavane, set out to look for work. She was elated when she learnt she would be paid Rs50 for eight hours of paddy planting at a farm 5km from her home in Tembhali village in tribal-dominated Nandurbar district. Only a day ago, prime minister Manmohan Singh...
More »The mass job guarantee by Aruna Roy & Nachiket Udupa
The sea change that India’s national scheme for rural employment guarantee has accomplished is hard to fathom, its vastness touching the lives or more than 100 million people. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (NREGA, subsequently renamed after Mahatma Gandhi, or MGNREGA) was a landmark in Indian legislation. Under the act, as of April 2008, for the first time in India’s history, all rural citizens have a legal right...
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