-Outlook An international row over a ‘world record’ “It’s 120 per cent fake,” Professor Yuan Long Ping (82), hailed as the father of ‘hybrid rice’ in China, had fumed last week in reaction to the claim that five farmers from Bihar had all individually grown more rice per hectare than the ‘world record’ of 19.4 tonnes per hectare in China—the best figure being 22.4 ton­nes. He would believe the claim, he...

-The Economist Government borrowing generates inflation, widens the external deficit and crowds out much-needed investment. Can India now overcome its debt addiction? INDIA has grappled with its public finances for long enough. When presenting its first budget after independence in 1947, the finance minister of the day insisted that the country was not living beyond its means. Yet every budget since has failed to produce a surplus. India borrows more heavily...

-The Hindu Kota, Rajasthan: The sun is about to set over grey-brown slabs in sandstone quarries in Kota district, Rajasthan. Babulal Khairwa sits at the edge of a quarry and attentively hits a taanki, a chisel shaped like a gigantic nail, placed on the stone with a hammer. Babulal hits the stone with the hammer till it cracks in a straight line. Each 2 by 10 square feet foot slab, or...

The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, the 73rd amendment and the landmark PESA and Forest Rights Act (FRA) have progressively acknowledged the rights, and special powers of the Gram Sabha in deciding developmental projects as well as playing a role in protecting the ecology and forests. But a clutch of clever exemptions in recent months are ensuring that centralised authorities take away the same powers through the back door, without routing...

-The Telegraph Union power ministry is understood to have decided to go ahead with its 1980MW project covering Chatra and Hazaribagh districts, overriding coal ministry objections but has agreed to cut down land use for the proposed plant in North Karanpura. Setting aside objections of the coal ministry, which wanted the project shifted out of the coal-rich area, the power ministry has now moved a draft cabinet note indicating its resolve to...