-Outlook   The secret behind the Ganga’s ability to self-rejuvenate its waters continues to elude discovery In 2009, when C.S. Nautiyal, now the director of Lucknow’s National Botanical Research Institute, spiked a fresh Ganga water sample with an infectious strain of Escherichia coli to test the Ganga’s reported self-healing qualities, he found that the bacteria lasted no longer than three days. He repeated the experiment with a 16-year-old sample of Ganga...

One of India’s most distinguished economists, Suresh Tendulkar (70), passed away at a private hospital in the city on Tuesday morning. He was former chairman of the Prime Minister’s economic advisory council and also a former part-time chief of the National Statistical Commission. Tendulkar, who was admitted to Prayag Hospital in Deccan Gymkhana following cardiac arrest on June 2, breathed his last around 11 am. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and deputy chief minister...

Being asked to write on Suresh Tendulkar means that the memories of four tumultuous decades crowd in. They are memories of a genuine teacher, a very careful researcher and an obstinately independent western Indian in Delhi. I always thought of him as a very competent and highly trained economist — but also as an obstinately autonomous Maratha in unfamiliar surroundings. In the 1970s, while examining critiques of the draft Fifth Five-Year...

-NDTV   A board outside a temple for the Goddess Kali orders Dalits to stop at this point. "Harijans can pray from here," it declares. The warning sign was put up in August last year after three Schoolgirls entered the shrine to offer Prasad to the Goddess, an icon of empowerment and Shakti. The caretaker of the temple in Orissa's Puri district offers no apologies for the discrimination. "It is against tradition,"...

The denial of equality, dignity and autonomy to persons with disabilities lies at the core of disability rights. “Disability need not be an obstacle to success … It is my hope that … this century will mark a turning point for inclusion of people with disabilities in the lives of their societies.” — Professor Stephen Hawking, “Foreword,” World Report on Disability. The inauguration of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of...