The Times of India

For all those who believe that global inequality and poverty have been worsening, here is some dramatic news. In the two decades from 1980 to 2000, the proportion of poor people in the world has fallen from 44 per cent […]

For all those who believe that global inequality and poverty have been worsening, here is some dramatic news. In the two decades from 1980 to 2000, the proportion of poor people in the world has fallen from 44 per cent

Dear Yashwant Sinha, When you were finance minister, you played an important role in attracting foreign direct investment. Pessimists earlier thought that FDI would dry up if the BJP ever came to power. But you were among those who understood

For most of history, an agricultural crisis in India has meant scarcity. Today it means excess. We have a foodgrain mountain of over 60 million tones, as well as a mountain of unsold sugar. And unsold cotton stocks are so

Green fundamentalists are killers. Their opposition to genetically modified foods is killing people in famine-hit Africa today, and could threaten Indians in the future too. The USA has rushed food aid to southern Africa in the form of maize, the

When Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, decided to launch a Gaurav Yatra (journey of pride for Hindus), it reminded me of another incident which I could not put my finger on. When before, I wondered, had somebody declared that

Before the Johannesburg summit on the environment, I was asked what I thought it would achieve. I replied that the amount of hot air generated would surely contribute to rather than solve the problem of global warming. The millions of

Even cynics were shaken when Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray ordered Power Minister Suresh Prabhu to resign on the ground that he was too honest. We are used to the notion that politicians should resign if caught extorting bribes. Never

The government’s proposal to issue identity cards with machine-readable numbers to all citizens has, predictably, raised angry questions. Do you really want to be known as Citizen 1004762548 ? The Economic Times had a cartoon showing Home Minister Advani stamping

Whether the rains revive or not, India faces the worst drought since 1987. If it rains steadily for the next two weeks in drought-hit states, something can be retrieved from the wreckage of the monsoon. Even so rural India will