The International Energy Agency (IEA) has highlighted that over 20% of the global population or 1.4 billion people lack Access to Electricity, which hinders economic and social development. Here in India, the grim reality is that almost half the population in rural areas has little or no supply of power. For long years, open-ended subsidies in power have mostly been diverted and usurped by the undeserving non-poor. Fortunately, social, managerial and...

Eighty-five-year old Zahur Shah from the 250-year-old Badarpur Khadar village said he was searching for the cancer camp some time back when a passer-by told him he was standing in front of it. “Agar mujhe padna aata toh mere itne ghante usko dhoondne mein nahi lagte. Padai likhai ke bina insaan janwar jaisa hai,” says the father of nine children, and this family of three generations has never been to school. This...

‘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...

Swaths of the world inhabit a modern dark age, with lack of electricity and modern cooking facilities condemning billions to deep poverty, the top UN energy body said Tuesday. According to the International Energy Agency, more than 20 percent of the global population, or 1.4 billion people, lack Access to Electricity, while about 40 percent rely on the likes of wood stoves for cooking. "This is shameful and unacceptable," the IEA said...

Next month, the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, one of the most powerful laws enacted in independent India, completes half a decade in the cause of transparent and accountable administration. It enables, on demand, access to information the State and Central governments have in their possession. It empowers Indian citizens to ask for and get specific information, subject to certain norms, from a Public Authority, “thus making its functionaries...