A quarter of Indian households are still without power

In UP and Bihar alone, 21 million households are still unconnected, almost half of the 41 million households still not electrified as of a few months ago

On Sunday, the government announced that the goal of electrifying all Indian villages had been completed. This target, originally to be met by May 2017, has nevertheless been achieved with dispatch, and it is a milestone that deserves to be marked. On many levels, it is unfortunate that it has taken so long for Indian villages — defined in this case by the criteria used by the decennial census — to be electrified. The government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi rightly made this a priority, launched a system by which electrification could be tracked online, and did not miss