‘Without electricity, social and economic development is much more difficult.' More than $36 billion a year is needed to ensure that the world's population benefits from access to electricity and clean-burning cooking facilities by 2030, the International Energy Agency said on September 21. In a report prepared for the U.N. Millennium Development Goals meeting in New York, the agency said the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2015 would be possible only...

At least 14 people died in the last 24 hours in the 12 flood-hit districts of western UP, taking the toll in rain-related incidents in the state to 270. Nearly 5 lakh people across 1,032 villages have been affected, 47 villages have been marooned. On Wednesday, the Army was called out in Shahjahanpur district. Relief Commissioner KK Sinha said: "Ramganga and Garrah are in spate in Shahjahanpur and the Army has been...

Apni kheti, apna khaad / Apna beej, apna swaad (Our own farm, our own fertiliser / Our own seeds, our own taste) -- Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi. A farmer from Tandia village in Varanasi has a solution to India's burgeoning food crisis. In a land where poverty, hunger, malnutrition and farmer suicides are rampant, Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi's innovation could work wonders. He has single-handedly developed a number of high yielding, nutritious...

Gowthami limps into the all-women police station in the export hub of Tirupur with tears in her eyes. The 23-year-old mother of a little boy attempted to end her life swallowing a packet of powdered mosquito repellent coil, but miraculously survived. ''I don't want to be alive. My husband says I look like a Fat pig... he thrashes me quite often,'' she says. Every day, at least a dozen young...

In three districts of Haryana, they have been agitating against the land acquisition policy of the State government. WHEN farmers of western Uttar Pradesh took to the streets protesting against the acquisition of their lands and demanding a just compensation package from the State government, the central leadership of the Congress was quick to cite the example of Haryana, where, according to United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the best policies...