Our organically grown urban areas are very close to being the ideal mixed-land-use places that the West is now attempting to create. To leverage this phenomenon, there must be incentives to encourage development in the inner cities instead of in sprawling suburbs, writes Madhav Pai.

Apathetic, inefficient government and mindless pursuit of Western consumerist ideals by a few have brought India's marginalized millions to a state where the judiciary has to intervene to enforce the most basic of rights. Often, without effect, as Sakuntala Narasimhan finds.

Chitta Behera points out that the otherwise progressive draft Right to Information Act 2004 (prepared by the National Advisory Council) could do with some additional fine-tuning while still under review within the offices of our government.

Anees Bazmi is now the unlikeliest part of Dr Singh's political life, thanks to his blockbuster.

India is well on its way to a low-carbon economic future, but its global image suffers because we lack the public discourse to bolster our argument, unlike China and the Western countries, writes Darryl D'Monte.

The government's focus on solar energy is driven by the need to demonstrate a commitment to renewable energy. But equity too is vital for the success of the National Solar Mission, writes Sujatha Byravan.

A new scheme launched by PM Narendra Modi envisages development through a model in which every MP chooses a village to develop, with people’s participation. Vikas Jha looks at the numbers and realities to explore the real needs of rural development at the panchayat level.

With the law of small numbers threatening to take over, we need a public discussion of the good life, a search for truth done by individuals in association with others, writes Rajesh Kasturirangan.

The decline of politics and of intellectual discourse is related to the struggle between politics and economics as the arbiter of the moral commons and the role of the developmental state in this fight, writes Rajesh Kasturirangan.

Public audit of an organisation or individual by a statutory authority is proven to give teeth to enforcement. Why then has India's CAG failed to instill fear in the various government departments and enterprises it monitors? A new book by B P Mathur tackles this and more, says Himanshu Upadhyaya.

When river restoration translates merely into cosmetic beautification of its ‘front’, real estate and urban elite are the only ones to gain at the cost of the larger river ecology. Amruta Pradhan discusses the Sabarmati Riverfront Development project and others inspired by it to highlight the risks in the model.

In October 2014, a draft consultation paper from the Planning Commission detailed the many issues faced by India’s handloom sector and the failure of earlier schemes to solve the problems faced by weavers. Elizabeth Soumya summarises key points from the report.

A new food processing company in Kerala proposes to market innovative products, the success of which could well place the largely neglected jackfruit in the focus of attention of bigger players in the state’s food processing industry. Shree Padre reports.

When technological change has the potential to put the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people at risk, it must be regulated differently from other products in a free market. Blindly promoting innovation, as is now being done with genetically engineered crops, is self-defeating, writes Suman Sahai.

The UPA Government is attempting to achieve consensus and amend the Office of Profit law to allow select legislators to hold additional public offices. This is merely the climax of a larger trend, says Madabhushi Sridhar, of an already thin separation of power between executive and legislature, and of earlier efforts to dilute the Constitution.

Legislation to regulate and administer the country's water sector is a crying need, but the Draft National Water Framework Law recently submitted by the Alagh Committee is a disappointment. Shripad Dharmadhikary explains why.

The question foremost on the minds of both believers and sceptics now is whether AAP will be able to keep its lofty promises to the people. Subramaniam Vincent feels that this may not require rocket science, after all.

Launched after a successful international pledge campaign in 2007, the Bakul children's library in Bhubaneshwar is slowly turning into a node for various kinds of volunteering. Professors, young artists, students, organisers and others have started chipping in. Sailen Routray has more.

An Expert Group in the Planning Commission calls for a more development-led approach to people's resistance, and a renewed commitment by the State to the democratic system. K S Subramanian says a lot of people should read the report.

Total Sanitation Campaign, MGNREGS and other government schemes are unheard of among villagers at Dinesh Nagar, Assam who live with a perennial lack of food, pure water, and health amenities. Nilotpal Bhattacharjee wonders if they will ever find deliverance from despair.

Three million forest dwellers in Odisha are estimated to have been displaced since independence by various industrial and hydro-projects, among which the Upper Indiravati Hydro Project is one. Abhijit Mohanty brings us the story of three tribal settlements uprooted by it.

Direct Electro-Convulsive Therapy, banned in the west and some Indian states as a form of medical torture, is finding new advocates. Ethical psychiatrists must strongly disavow the practice, says Bhargavi Davar.

This time for public health and hygiene. Ramesh Menon interviews Bindeswar Pathak, the founder of Sulabh International Social Service Organisation.

The Indian experience in institutionalised mental help has not been civilising. The National Human Rights Commission had issued a condemnation of the state of mental hospitals as early as six years ago. Parul Sharma notes that misguided private counselling and the lack of richer case law have compounded victims' problems.

Why would the Government of India deny a job to an individual who carries a mutation in the DNA? There is prejudice in the Indian society against individual perceived as "sexual anomalies". Vaijayanti Gupta initiates an educational discussion on the biology of sex and sexual orientations.

HIV-positive children in Assam and their families need more than the usual measures of state support for their economic, medical and social needs. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

The Railway Budget this year has been hailed for its pragmatic approach and emphasis on modernisation and customer experience. Tanvi Bhatikar raises a critical issue that needs to be addressed in order to deliver on those fronts.

Handing out non-biodegradable sanitary pads to rural school girls who have reached menarche will not address their menstrual hygiene issue. Clean and functional toilets with water supply, awareness about menstruation, economical and biodegradable pads and more is needed, finds Puja Awasthi.

27-year-old Ratnamma, a garment factory worker, was forced to deliver a baby on the streets of Bangalore. 20-year-old Gayathri was run over by the bus belonging to the Bangalore garment factory where she worked. Garment workers in Bangalore are caught in an exploitative web, reports Padmalatha Ravi.

For its work on child rights and participation in governance, Bangalore-based Concerned for Working children has received the big nomination this year. Navya P K has more.

The Centre gears up to take national control of the Kosi and Gandak and turn them into commercial waterways. Shripad Dharmadhikary and the Manthan team report on findings from a recent visit to the region.

Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Wednesday appealed to the state government to provide monetary relief of Rs 7,600 and 10 kilograms of rice to each jobless poor person, besides ensuring jobs to all MGNREGA card holders and bringing towns under the national labour scheme.

A Rajasthan-registered bus, which carried 43 pilgrims from Ajmer Sharif that falls in the red zone, to Silchar on Wednesday, has now become cause of worry for Assam after five of its passengers have tested positive in the past 24 hours, which has pushed the state’s total positive cases to 49 on Friday.

Odisha reported 34 new cases on Thursday, 30 of them migrant workers who had returned from Surat in Gujarat.

Police on Friday said they have arrested four men, three of them engineers, for stealing motorcycles, phones and for looting cash from various grocery stores here.

Anecdotally, it is often said that engineers tend to lean rightwards in their politics. In their new book, Engineers of Jihad, sociologist Diego Gambetta and political scientist Steffen Hertog back up that gut sense with data. They find that Islamist radicalism and other far-right movements are dominated by engineers, doctors and those with tech backgrounds, while left-wing movements draw people from the humanities and social sciences. They tell TOI why this may be the case

Migrant workers will no more be required to submit medical certificate while applying for police pass to travel to their home states, said city police commissioner Vishwas Nangare Patil on Friday.

The video has been captioned, 'When India's Persons with Disabilities decided to have some fun.'

Vyas will be in the new role for a period of eight months, effective from April 28, according to a BSE filing by the company.

Chief Economic Adviser K Subramanian said policy making in India happens throughout the year, coming up with a separate budget may only be a legal way to go about it.

Dhawan will assume charge from Saturday in place of Ashish Agarwal, the current chief risk officer, who will transition to a new role in the bank.

This is the first sizable investment by SLP in India and reaffirms Jio’s technological capabilities and the potential of the business model, even in this Covid-19 world and beyond.

It further said that although 2020 is a lost year, in terms of trade, India can think long-term and build relations so that it can occupy the space vacated by China.

While the first instalment of the SGB 2020-21 series was open for subscription from April 20 to 24, the current issue will be open from May 11 to May 15.