Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Friday charged that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had in fact rubbished India’s consistent position on climate change and “endorsed the principle put forward by the developed world.” India gave in to the “bandwagon effect,” following China in announcing voluntary cuts in carbon emission intensity, not caring about the fact that its per capita emissions were far higher than India’s, he said. In any case,...

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...

PATNA: A staggering 300 Bihar government employees earning modest government salaries are crorepatis. If this isn’t surprising enough, here’s more:    All but two of the sleazy 300 continue to hold on to their secure as also, no doubt, lucrative - government jobs despite long stints in jails. According to official figures, 71 such corrupt babus were caught until November this year by the state vigilance bureau. In 2006, when chief...

Rich and poor countries have to give ground to get a deal in Copenhagen; then they must focus on setting a carbon price AT A time when they are not short of pressing problems to deal with, the presence of 100-odd world leaders at the two-week meeting that starts in Copenhagen on December 7th to renew the Kyoto protocol on climate change might seem a little self-indulgent. There will be oceans...

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...