Half the world’s 48 least developed countries (LDCs) can “graduate” out of their impoverished status within 10 years if they benefit from better targeted development aid, duty- and quota-free access for exports and doubled farm productivity and school enrolment, according to a United Nations report released today. This is considered a bold objective, given that altogether there have been 51 LDCs since the category was created by the UN in 1970,...

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) recently in New Delhi, India gathered more than 900 participants for an international conference to examine ways that agriculture can enhance the health and nutritional status of poor people in developing worlds. Scholars, Politicians and activists during the conference tried to exploit the nexus between agriculture, nutrition and health. Most people would say that agriculture is for growing food, and on one level, they are...

India's rural innovators have proved that ordinary people are indeed capable of extraordinary inventions. Despite many constraints -- lack of education and severe cash crunch -- most of them have succeeded in using technology cost-effectively to build ingenious products. A washing-cum-exercise machine, hand operated water lifting device, portable smokeless stove, automatic food making machine, solar mosquito killer, shock proof converter, a floating toilet soap are few of the products on display...

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wants it to be the new Singapore. State officials call it Urjanchal, land of energy. For sociologist Sakarama Somayaji, the enduring image from India’s emerging energy wonderland in Singrauli is the women who sell baskets of stones on the roadside. Individually or in groups, the women break stones, and sell them to passing trucks for R80-R90 a basket, a day’s labour. The women are...

Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday made an emotional appeal for the Jaitapur nuclear power project saying that he would never tolerate an unsafe project for Maharashtra at any cost. Speaking at an “open house” on the project at the Y. B. Chavan auditorium here, the Chief Minister said that in setting up this project about 60 to 65 per cent of the work would be done by Indian companies....