The Tamilnadu Government under the Leadership of Dr. Kalaignar Karunanidhi It has been two years since Dr. Kalaignar Karunanidhi took I over as Chief Minister of Tamilnadu. During these two I years, the state has made rapid strides in all sectors of the economy. Even as steps were taken to develope the industrial profile of the state, the government did not neglect the common man.

Welcome to the Babel of numbers. Till last week, every third person in the world living on an income of less than a dollar a day, was an Indian.

This week, the World Bank announced a new measure of poverty. Now anyone living with an income of under $1.25 (Rs 55) per day was poor. By this measure again, every third person living under the poverty line was an Indian.

This is a region where, if you have survived the night, you are not likely to get your morning cup of tea because all milk-producing livestock is dead

Bellary's mining magnates hogged the headlines during the recent Karnataka polls for their successful foray into politics. In Madhya Pradesh though, the script reads out in reverse.

Here, politicians have joined the gold rush and acquired vast interests in mining across the state. The consequences of this mad scramble for a piece of the mining pie have been disastrous for the environment.

Manjit Kaur could hardly have believed it but she has been cured of a two-decade-old list of ailments. Her cure has come neither through a doctor nor a stack of pills, but instead from a community-based safe drinking water project commissioned in her native Muktsar district, Punjab, four months ago.

Now Kaur, 45, is among the first in queue to fetch a 20-litre can of treated water in her village twice a day. It was contaminated water that gave her joint pains and bleeding gums. Now that the water is clean, Kaur's health is reviving.

Fourteen years ago, he was the kind of student multinational companies would swoop down on in campus interviews. There was nothing in his background to even suggest that he wouldn

His ochre robes and saint-like demeanour make him look like one of the ubiquitous dera godmen in the Punjab countryside. But this baba stands apart.

They are just 220 km away from the hustle and bustle of Ahmedabad, but the 42 tribal villages of Amirgadh taluka in Gujarat

A deep rumble, like the steady snores of a sleeping giant, envelops the factory. The temperature is nearly 75 degree celsius near the furnace, the surface temperature being around 300 degree celsius.

Heedless of the heat, men armed with steel rods, the tips glowing, walk to and fro thrusting the ends into the furnace, wrapping gleaming molten glass around the rods.

Clad in a sensible cotton salwar-kameez, sporting silver and black sneakers, she is a powerhouse. She knows what she wants and does it.

She makes sure waste doesn't go to waste and re-uses it to create things of beauty. Her main aim is to "ensure every rag-picker gets his share of a monthly salary of Rs 3,500 to survive".