-The Times of India AURANGABAD: At a time when all of Marathwada is reeling under a drought-like situation, Akola Dev, a small village with a population of 3,000 in the Jafrabad taluka of Jalna district has set an example by introducing efficient water conservation methods in its periphery. All the villagers have joined hands to implement water conservation methods, thereby enabling them to sustain on last year's rainfall. Moreover, the farmers in...

-The Hindu Business Line While the limitations of the concept of economic growth are acknowledged, we need a better index than HDI Despite claims that economic Development as a branch of economic science emerged only in the 1950s, there is no doubt that the notion of Development existed even in classical economic thought processes, emerging from the writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The recognition of Development economics as a discipline...

-Down to Earth Going by current trends, the target for reducing infant mortality and improving other human Development indices seem near impossible to achieve Less that 500 days are left for nations to achieve the targets set under the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); there are eight such goals which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education. The countdown for the deadline...

The Business Standard The Planning Commission has not been central to the policymaking process since the mid-1960s In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the end of the Planning Commission. There will be few mourners at its funeral, mainly old war horses like me. So this is in the nature of an obituary for an institution in which I served for a decade and a half, and where I...

-IPS News MALKANGIRI (Odisha)- Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India's eastern Odisha state, the Upper Bonda people are considered one of this country's most ancient tribes, having barely altered their lifestyle in over a thousand years. Resistant to contact with the outside world and fiercely skeptical of modern Development, this community of under...