Off Sarkhej highway on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Solapur highway in Pune, NH 7 near Whitefield in Bangalore, Ambala-Chandigarh highway at Lalru--steel-and-glass buildings dot the landscape. From the outside they look like archetypical expressions of new-age planning.

Union Agriculture, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Sharad Pawar spoke with Managing Editor Shankkar Aiyar and answered a volley of charges with a straight bat.

Do you think prices will come down in the near future?

On the surface it looks like a paradox. When agricultural production in most other states is plummeting, Gujarat, with large semi-arid tracts that were alien to good crops, offers a turnaround story. Last year, it posted an agricultural growth of 9.6 per cent against a national average of 2.9 per cent.

The world over and in textbooks of basic economics, price is defined as a function of supply and demand. In India, there is a third variable. It is called politics. Look around and evidence is strewn all over. Everything that is in the domain of private India is getting cheaper--from mobile phones to cars to anything that is manufactured.

In a small, hilly district of south Gujarat lies the story of a people moving out of the shadow of war and death, guns and bullets to embrace peace and prosperity. It is the story of bravery in the face of death, of battling armed Maoists who are slicing through India's tribal heartland, challenging the writ of the state.

A roomful of reporters, whirring TV cameras and popping camera flashes. Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, the world's climate czar, is used to such attention. As chairman of a UN body appointed to study the impact of climate change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore, he earned plaudits.

One unforgettable moment during the Republic Day parade in Delhi is the sight of the President driving up Rajpath, accompanied by the members of the President's Bodyguard on their majestic steeds. It's ironic as well. The Presidential limo represents the reason that horses became an endangered species: the arrival of the automobile, courtesy Henry Ford.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Arthur C. Clarke once wrote. So it is with stem cells and their almost miraculous potential to save our lives. Stem cells are so tiny that it would take a million of them clustered together to form a pin head. Yet as their name denotes all other cells 'stem' from them.

It's the favourite mantra of policymakers, politicians and India Inc and they never tire of prescribing it as a driver of growth and employment generation. Tragically though, for all the chants, once a top item on the infrastructure agenda of the Essars, DLFs and Parsvnaths, special economic zones (SEZs) are now off the priority list of corporate investments.

The resounding success of the Delhi Metro has triggered a race among Indian cities to get a metro they can call their own. India's financial capital too has started off on an ambitious nine-line metro project that has brought parts of Mumbai to a halt. Already, road space has shrunk, footpaths are depleted and huge columns stand in the middle of busy roads.