Smart Step to Help India’s Rural Poor
LETTER FROM INDIA KAKUPPAM, INDIA — A swarm of men and women, mostly women, fills the bed of a dried-out reservoir. They’re armed with shovels and crowbars and pickaxes. They chop at the wild grass and dig at the hardened clay that have choked the reservoir. It’s a hot day. Many of the men are […]
In the New India, Everyone Is Free to Flourish or Fail
Letter from India, The International Herald Tribune MOLASUR, INDIA — On a rainy day in the South Indian village of Molasur, a dusty warren of thatch huts, tiled roofs and brightly painted temples, I met a man named M. Das. He was 45 years old. He was well dressed, in an ironed blue shirt […]
An Indian Says Farewell to Poverty, With Jitters
A version of my first column from the International Herald Tribune was reprinted in this week’s New York Times. People sometimes ask me how I feel about India’s economic development. I tell them the truth. I say I don’t know. I say I feel ambivalent about the passing of a world I knew as […]