For years, they have been waking up early and starting late. But India's northeast, which sees sunrise almost two hours before Mumbai, has decided it's time to set the clock right. The region's demand for a separate time zone has never been more vociferous April is usually the cruelest month for India's northeastern states. Cyclonic storms lash the region with vengeance and rip apart homes and hopes. But in all...

In what appears to be a travesty of justice, three petty thieves were convicted of murdering National Highways Authority of India whistleblower Satyendra Dubey, who had exposed corruption in the PM's Golden Quadrilateral Project in November 2003. Six years after his murder, a Patna fast-track court on Monday convicted all the three accused in the case. Judge Raghvendra Singh will decide on the quantum of punishment to the three convicts...

I have been an advisor to The Energy and Resources Institute or Teri, a distinguished visiting fellow there since 1996, except when I was the chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, the director-general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, the chairman of the Institute for Social and Economic Change and on boards of management and economic research institutions. This disclaimer is intended to forestall motives being ascribed...

Scarcity teaches a village in Orissa how to manage its water supply Thirty-something Gulab Kunju remembers the days when she would drink milk to quench thirst because drinking water was scarce. Her village Dhaurada had three hand pumps to meet the needs of more than 120 families settled in four hamlets. Each day she would make several trips to the nearest hand pump on the outskirts of her hamlet. During summers the...

Paddy cultivation on over 1.50 lakh acres in three southern districts served by the Periyar river water through Vaigai dam has reached a critical situation with dwindling storage in Periyar and Vaigai reservoirs. Currently, the over 80-day standing crop in Madurai, Dindigul and Sivaganga districts is facing a shortage of around 650 mcft of water even after calculating an anticipated fresh flow into the Periyar dam of around 259 mcft. PWD...