-The Indian Express The protests in Delhi are generating two sorts of anxiety. The spectacle of a spontaneous, unstructured, unavoidably vague movement borne out of genuine rage has unsettled the establishment. And it will respond the way it does: by recourse to the language of order. The second is a critique that the movement is misdirected: it is blaming government for what is, in fact, a deep social problem. It is...

-The New York Times blog You could be pardoned for thinking that light pollution is someone’s idea of a Diwali joke. With concerns about rising air pollution hanging over India’s capital like the thick blanket of smog that appeared a few weeks ago and activists against noise pollution jostling to be heard over the burst of holiday firecrackers, the relatively benign problem of light pollution may not seem too important. But astronomers in...

-The Indian Express Fifteen-year-old Altaf Hussain crouches effortlessly and heads into what looks like a black hole. Dragging a large wooden cart behind him, he disappears into the gaping darkness within seconds. After what seems like an endless wait but lasts just half an hour, he emerges from the hole with a cart laden with dark, glittering coal. The head of this group of 30 is Abu Kalam Mia. The 27-year-old ‘sardar’,...

-Outlook Out in our streets, disabled people feel the pain everyday The Gaping Holes     India yet to get a cohesive, standardised sign language     Barrier-free infrastructure yet to be implemented in public areas like bus stations, railway stations, schools, cinema halls     Lack of basic, inclusive civic facilities: no audio-enabled traffic signals, pavements with ramps, few disability-friendly toilets, negligible penalties     Poor functional entertainment accessibility, like no subtitling on local language TV channels     Reservation...

-Outlook Chennai: Attempting to capitalise on 300 clear sunny days available in the state annually, Tamil Nadu government today unveiled a new solar energy policy, envisaging to produce over 3000 MW of power, exclusively from solar power, in the next three years. Christened as 'Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy 2012,' the new initiative of the Jayalalithaa government, with a slew of encouraging features, finds opportunity in the rapidly declining solar power costs...