-The Business Standard   A young entrepreneur with an engineering degree from India’s premier engineering school and a postgraduate degree from the US’s finest technical school develops an innovative service aimed at ameliorating the energy utility situation in rural India. In 1995, he co-founds SELCO India, which provides customised energy solutions based on each household’s requirements. It facilitates low-income rural households to secure financing help from local financial institutions. Read how...

Those of us interested in gender equality tend to be obsessed with the politically and economically important areas in which we need this equality — education, employment, health, political representation. But equality in these important but grim attributes leaves out many things that actually make life more enjoyable and thus more worth living. Women deserve more from gender equality than better housekeeping and management skills. In most societies, men are much...

-News on Air   The Food Security Bill finalised by the National Advisory Council will be brought to Parliament shortly for approval. The draft bill entitles 75 percent of the population to highly subsidised food grains. It provides for people living Below Povery Line getting rice at three rupees a kilogram and wheat at two rupees a kilogram. The Bill proposes that general households will have the right to 20 kilograms...

Dr. Subba Reddy, my classmate at the medical college, practises in a village in Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh. A decade ago, a patient came to him for treatment of hydrocele. After examination, Dr. Reddy suggested surgery costing Rs. 500. The patient asked Dr. Reddy to refer him to a bigger hospital in a city. Dr. Reddy suggested a city hospital. After a few days, he received Rs.1,000 from the...

The Right to Education Act, which lacks a transformational vision, is geared to preparing foot soldiers for the global market. THE most encouraging and delightful news regarding school education in India since the pro-market reforms began in 1991 came from Erode district in Tamil Nadu recently. To be sure, it is neither about the World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) of the 1990s nor about the internationally funded and...