Cities should be able to manage themselves and be self-sustaining, with a single energy input. This article presents the idea of natural cities.

The emergence of broadband networks - both wireline and wireless - has assisted in fostering the applications and content development, and provided content and application providers with a huge and growing addressable market with very low barriers to entry. However, there is always a tension between end-user connectivity providers and CAPs on the nuances of net neutrality, the principle that content consumed should be decided by the end-user without any distortion by the connectivity provider.

Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "Summary for Policymakers" make for alarming reading about the global warming phenomenon. How bad climate impacts will be beyond the mid-century depends crucially on the world urgently shifting to a development trajectory that is clean, sustainable, and equitable, a notion of equity that includes space for the poor, for future generations and other species.

Victims of ill-conceived policies governing forest resources and environmental conservation, the Van Gujjars, a pastoral nomadic community residing in the Rajaji National Park, are struggling to get their forest rights and entitlements under the FRA Act, 2006.

A preliminary look at the electoral performance of the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi state using Geographical Information System (GIS) tools allows us to make some qualitative conclusions that could have a bearing on the AAP's political strategy going forward.

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As the construction sector grows, illegal sand and granite mining can only be expected to increase. From what can be seen until now, honest officers who have taken action against the sand mafia in their respective districts in different states have either been transferred or suspended. The politician-sand mafia nexus must be broken in order to protect the environment and prevent huge revenue loss.

Against the backdrop of growing criticism of the index of industrial production, which provides information only about the past and sometimes fl uctuates wildly, this article seeks to provide a more robust and forward-looking economic indicator of industrial growth. Such an indicator, based on past IIP numbers, can also serve as a benchmark for future IIP numbers when they are released.

This note is in response to the article “Major Insights from India’s Minor Irrigation Censuses: 1986-87 to 2006-07” (EPW, 29 June 2013) by Mukherji, Rawat and Shah. The authors claim to offer an understanding of the
evolution of ground water irrigation in India.

The brouhaha over Coalgate has pushed the genuine long-term issues in coal to the background. India's coal reserves are smaller than estimated and the flurry of coal-based power plants that have been approved in recent years has seen a frenetic rush to tie up coal resources, which at this rate would last no more than 20 years. Auction of mines is by itself no solution to the problems created by private allotment; auctions need to be carefully crafted and there should be production-sharing contracts monitored by a statutory regulator.

Fears in Andhra Pradesh over the sharing of Krishna and Godavari waters, government jobs, personal safety, state assets and liabilities, and Article 371 (D) are for the most part not based on an awareness of the steps that can be taken to allay them. The ‘real’ conflict is over the way the division of the state and the position of Hyderabad will affect the power bases of the state’s two ruling castes, the Reddys and Kammas. The people, who only need peace and development, could do without this.