World Population Day was observed on July 11 and for a brief moment the world remembered an old problem. Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad gave a speech on the need to control population growth and suggested measures to increase the age of marriage. We have been trying to stabilise our population since the early seventies with efforts that have ranged from gentle persuasion to Sanjay Gandhi&rsquo;s infamous sterilisation campaign.

Sanjeev Sanyal: Light at the end of the population tunnel

Business Standard

Everyone in Delhi feels good about Delhi Metro. It has given residents of the city a public transport network of which they can really be proud. It manages the network efficiently. It runs the trains on time. It provides a clean and comfortable service for commuters at a tariff that is one of the cheapest among all the metro networks in the world.

A K Bhattacharya: The Metro Man&#39;s two mistakes

India's cargo trains run at 19-30 km an hour, they run at 120 km in China - and the difference is only growing.

Barun Roy: The rail&#39;s just a snail

Since it does not take into account new abnormalities like the MJO, it is hardly surprising that the Met has got it wrong once again.

Shreekant Sambrani: No doubt, it&#39;s a drought

Xinjiang, China&rsquo;s remote western province, exploded onto the world&rsquo;s headlines last week. Riots in the provincial capital Urumqi, that have left over 180 people dead, are being served up as the latest evidence of a stand-off between an oppressive dictatorship, and freedom-loving innocents. Although, framing the &lsquo;story&rsquo; in this manner fits in neatly with the West&rsquo;s evangelical prescriptions for political change in China, reading the Xinjiang riots as primarily a showdown between the State and citizens is misleading.

Pallavi Aiyar: Urumqi is not too different from Godhra

The finance minister has done well to respond to the criticism that followed his Budget presentation last week, specifically that he had not emphasised economic reforms. Pranab Mukherjee has now clarified that the government does intend to undertake disinvestment in state-owned enterprises during the year. On the second major point of criticism, with regard to the government&rsquo;s large borrowing programme, Mr Mukherjee has told Parliament that he will avoid raising interest rates and crowding out private borrowers; he has also said that he will not monetise this year&rsquo;s large fiscal deficit; the open market operations (OMO) that the Reserve Bank will be expected to undertake, he has said, should not be confused with monetisation.

Mr Mukherjee responds

India must be proactive in ensuring a successful outcome at Copenhagen as that is in our national interest.

Nitin Desai: Climate negotiations

What started a few years ago as a counter-point to the NDA government&rsquo;s &ldquo;India Shining&rdquo; proclamations is now turning into a crescendo. Indeed, the &ldquo;Aam Aadmi&rdquo; and &ldquo;Bharat&rdquo; terminology has now moved beyond the realm of political posturing, and is now well-entrenched in the lingua franca of the different chambers of commerce and the leadership of corporate India.

Arvind Singhal: Aam aadmi and Bharat

Environment regulation regime is set for radical change.

Green energy

One of the causal reasons for the financial sector meltdown in the US was the unbridled use of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. This appears to have led to misconceptions about systemic risk engendered by OTC markets. It is particularly surprising that leading economists are mistaken about the difference between the nominal size of OTC derivatives and corresponding credit exposures.

Jaimini Bhagwati: Demystifying and de-risking derivatives

It started out as the tenth general entertainment channel but after a year in that space, Colors has ended up at the top, first upstaging Sony, then Zee and ultimately Star Plus. That&rsquo;s remarkable really because Star TV occupied the number one spot for nearly ten years. The Viacom 18 venture&rsquo;s strategy has been near-perfect&mdash;launch with a blockbuster show, even if it&rsquo;s a loss-leader, and follow it up with what Indian viewers love most&mdash;soaps.

Shobhana Subramanian: The battle for the GEC space

Cities are managing to get more water while the majority of people live in villages &mdash; the tension is escalating.

Sunita Narain: Water wars

It is not a national cap, but where is the equity angle?
News reports have raised the question whether India gave away more than it should have in the discussions on climate change, at the recent meeting in Italy of the G-8 and G-5. It has been said that in agreeing to work towards a cap on how much the temperature of the earth should be allowed to change (2 degrees Celsius), the government has de facto agreed to accept quantifiable limits on India&rsquo;s own emission of greenhouse gases,

The two-degree limit

Without a common school policy, India&rsquo;s barbaric and unequal system of education will deepen divisions in society.

Latha Jishnu: The commons and the classes

The Second Reich&rsquo;s (1871-1918) penal code listed all offences with exact punishments. As Jerome K. Jerome said, this made financial planning a snap before planning a night out on the tiles. A German could get drunk, pick a fight, sing obscene songs and calculate to a pfennig the fines that would accrue.

Devangshu Datta: Wages of permissiveness

Even the fish in fish-and-chips is more likely to be Vietnamese cobbler.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Empire strikes back

Dol Purnima (traditionally celebrated in Santiniketan) or Basant Panchami or Holi was the big event which marked the end of season for Santiniketan till even a few years ago. Because after that, in April and May, it got really hot, in June and July really muggy and August and September really wet. Of course, there have always been those who enjoyed the rain but the numbers were not many.

Keya Sarkar: Policing the railways

The evening before she took off for her month-long vacation, my wife, in a rare moment of candour, said, &ldquo;With me gone, there will be no one to trouble you, therefore you can relax,&rdquo; going so far as to add a cheery, &ldquo;Enjoy yourself, then.&rdquo; And our daughter, who was accompanying her, chipped in with her own ode to bonded parenthood, &ldquo;Read, see movies, wake up late, watch television,&rdquo; since I would no longer be employed, however temporarily, in catering to her mood swings of pick-ups and drops and juggling cars and schedules. A few days later, my son too left for college with a similar homily. &ldquo;Think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;write,&rdquo; and to underline the importance of sustaining the domestic revenue stream, &ldquo;make money.

Kishore Singh: My life for a liver

The first time I tried a risotto, many years ago, it was at a lunch with the energetic Bina Modi, who had just launched Ego in Delhi, and who was even then not just another industrialist-wife. She pointed out, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s khichdi&rdquo;.

The perfect risotto

One of my early defining experiences was a night in Delhi back in 1975 or &rsquo;76 when an enormous monsoon storm blew the door to the terrace plumb off its hinges, with the sort of demonic roar and attendant terror you&rsquo;d expect if your airplane suddenly developed a hole in the fuselage midflight.

The perfect storm

Foreign Policy magazine, in its latest issue, lists five country leaders who might be wishing that George W Bush were still in the White House. It mentions Berlusconi of Italy, Netanyahu of Israel, Chavez of Venezuela (he misses Mr Bush as a target!), and the leaders of Poland and Colombia.

T N Ninan: Four lost years

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