The widespread acceptability of Bt technology among India's cotton farmers is a recognised reality today. This year, out of the total projected cotton area of 260-265 lakh acres, about 225 lakh acres would be sown under Bt hybrids/varieties. Considering that the latter figure stood at a mere 72,000 acres in 2002, it represents perhaps the most rapid rate of diffusion for any technology after the mobile phone. But even this tells only...

A woman, as everyone knows, usually gives birth to a baby after nine months of pregnancy, but in Bihar 298 women claim to have delivered two to five children in a span of 60 days - at least that's what records of incentives amount given to new mothers under a government scheme show. A woman gets around Rs.1,000 when she gives birth under the government's Janani Suraksha Yojana but a...

In an upstairs classroom at a residential school in Mal, near Lucknow, the girls are revising for their exams. As the light starts to fade at the glassless windows, each girl takes a brightly coloured plastic lamp and carries it to her space on the floor. There is no electricity, but the lamps are solar powered. They have been donated jointly by Swedish company Ikea and the United Nations Children’s...

It's not China's special economic zones that chief minister Narendra Modi wants to replicate in Gujarat. The state government has taken a leaf out of the Chinese cultural revolution of late 1960s, when Mao Zedong formally attacked "western TRAIned" medical system and floated the concept of ‘barefoot doctors'. The health ministry has decided to compensate for sharp shortage of allopathic doctors in the state by making large-scale appointment of barefoot...

The Government of India’s initiative to focus on agricultural development in the eastern states, as represented by the meeting that the Union ministers for finance and agriculture attended in Kolkata last week, is welcome if belated. Some may see this as a pre-election gimmick with an eye to elections in Bihar and Bengal. But there is no gainsaying the fact that the region’s agricultural economy needs a productivity boost. Among...