With international talks on climate change starting next week in Copenhagen, India staked out its early position on Thursday by announcing that it would slow the growth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, while also leaving open the possibility of taking bolder steps if an “equitable” deal can be reached during the negotiations. The Indian initiative, presented in Parliament by the country’s top environmental official, means that India has...

The United Nations predicted today that the world economy would bounce back next year with a global growth rate of 2.4 percent, but warned of a risk of a double-dip recession if the wrong policies are implemented. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Rob Vos, Director of Development Policy and Analysis from the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), ahead of the launch next month of the...

Judicial activism has faced several assaults from politicians and bureaucrats ever since the Supreme Court became affirmative. But the sad part is that it has had to also face onslaughts from within. When the public interest litigation movement was in its infancy, a bench of strict constructionists one morning brought up 10 questions that would have choked its growth in coils of conservative interpretation of the Constitution (Sudip Mazumdar vs Union...

HAS GREEN REVOLUTION FAILED INDIA'S POOR? Green Revolution Vs Rain-fed Farming OVERVIEW: Of late India’s fabled Green Revolution has come under severe attack. Many development thinkers believe that it has unfairly skewed India’s agriculture policy in favour of the farmers whose land is already or potentially covered under irrigation. The basic criticism is that the Green Revolution has been largely irrelevant for India’s 60 per cent cultivable land which is un-irrigated. These...

The Indian economy is picking up and should be able to expand at eight to nine per cent. It is high time that the government initiates a universal public distribution system covering at least the essential commodities. Incomes of the rich will go up and India will be a major player in the world when it revives. But the bulk of the population, about 70 per cent, will remain poor with...