The recent powercuts that hit about 620-million people in India were a sign of a democracy that takes power from its people, writes Randeep Ramesh.
A British study shows that the poorest people in the London borough of Westminster live 17 years less than the richest.
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/ 18 February 2011
Almost 60% of five-year-olds in some of Britain’s poorest areas do not reach a "good level" of behaviour and understanding.
One of the biggest concerns is that not enough is being done to cut the number of child deaths across the globe.
If the country succeeded, it would become only the fourth — after the United States, Russia and China — to send a man into space.
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/ 26 November 2008
At 35, Chetan Bhagat’s chronicling of the trials and tribulations of the country’s middle-class youth has made him a publishing phenomenon in India.
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/ 18 September 2008
State accused of stealing land and livelihoods for a factory that now lies empty.
Yoga evangelist has millions in his thrall, but critics claim devotees are being duped, writes Randeep Ramesh in Haridwar.
Last week, Nepal’s new constitutional assembly held its first meeting and put an end to the monarchy, a key part of a 2006 peace deal with Maoist guerrillas who gave up the bullet for the ballot box on the condition that the country becomes a secular republic. The civil war lasted a decade and cost more than 13 000 lives.
Hundreds of children are still being born with birth defects as a result of the world’s worst industrial disaster 23 years ago in the central Indian town of Bhopal, say campaigners. They are demanding that the Indian government provide immediate medical care and conduct research into the "hidden" health impacts.
Quiet and unassuming, the Indian business baron drives himself to work in an unremarkable Tata sedan. His beachfront bachelor pad is found in the hippest tip of south Mumbai, but Ratan has only CDs, books and his dogs for company. He does not drink or smoke. His vices revolve around speed.
Violent protests in Tibet have emphasised the growing divide within the exiled community over how to win the propaganda war with China. The spiritual leader of the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, abjures all violence and considers even hunger strikes and economic sanctions as illegitimate means of political protest.
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/ 29 October 2007
About 25 000 of India’s poorest people — tribal peoples, "untouchables" and landless labourers — have stopped traffic for nearly three weeks on the road that links Delhi and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. Headed by a group of chanting Buddhist monks, the marchers say they aim to shame government into keeping its promise to redistribute land.
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/ 22 October 2007
The stock market boom in India reached new heights on Monday with the Mumbai index shooting past 19 000 for the first time and creating paper fortunes worth billions of dollars for the country’s richest industrialists. The record high, which saw Mumbai’s Stock Exchange Sensitive index, or Sensex, rise almost 3,5% in the course of the day, was fuelled by foreign investors seeing rapid economic growth and company profits in India.
Arundhati Roy wrote a Booker winner, then became a political activist. Ten years and two court cases later, she has begun a second novel. Randeep Ramesh speaks to the author.
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/ 29 November 2005
Scouts all over Southern Africa will observe World Aids Day in a collaborative initiative to fight the rapid spread and devastating effects of HIV/Aids. The youth are more likely to bear the brunt of the HIV/Aids pandemic. No one knows this better than the South African Scout Association, an organisation that is focused on the youth.
STMicroelectronics, Europe’s largest chipmaker, announced last week that it will spend $100-million on two design centres in India to cash in on the country’s large, cheap but highly educated workforce.