Uttar Pradesh is not a state readily associated with dynamic economic reform. But the state has taken giant strides in reforming one of the least reformed industries in India: the sugar industry. The country’s second largest sugar producing state after Maharashtra is undertaking an aggressive privatisation of its state-owned sugar mills. It has, just recently, successfully sold off 10 of the 11 operating units of the state’s Sugar Corporation to...

In the long speeches made at the opening ceremony of the CW games, every important individual, department or institution that made a contribution, was acknowledged. Did anyone hear a word about the workers who made these world-class games possible? Maybe it was just a slip or maybe it was not considered necessary. Anyway, the workers were not there for the speeches, having been driven out of the capital just a...

Several thousand day labourers and their families were driven out of Delhi over the past couple of days to try and hide India’s poverty from foreign visitors to the Commonwealth Games, a police officer said today. Most were taken to railway stations and put on trains under the Delhi government’s orders, said the officer who oversaw part of the operation. Those who couldn’t afford tickets had their arms branded with an...

India and China Two largest populated countries of the world and next door neighbors; though greatly different in their cultures, lifestyles and most important pace of growth. Maintaining an edge over India in the manufacturing sector and urban infrastructure development, China is also not lagging behind in the rural development sector. China feeds 21% of the world population with only 9% of the world arable land. The 2nd largest populated country has to...

For a village of 400, a lesson learnt in 1965 and acted upon 20 years later has meant that its residents don’t have to worry about Jharkhand’s recurring calamity: drought. For those living in the Gumla village surrounded by hills, parched farmlands are a thing of the past, thanks to the success of a community initiative that led to the construction of a check dam to trap the water of a...