Shailesh Nayak the Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, interacted with Sulagna Chattopadhay from within the precincts of his minimalistic office, providing an excellent overview of India’s achievements in cyclone prediction and imminent development in the sector.

While sand is an important material in the construction industry, the burgeoning demand for sand is leading to illegal sand mining at many places across the country. Excessive sand mining has a huge ecological impact and there is an urgent need for alternatives to bridge the demand supply gap.

The Kerala Forest Department, through its unique model of community engagement, has involved the forest dwellers in the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve area to safeguard the forest, and provide a livelihood opportunity. The benefit—greater vigilance amounting to no poaching cases ever since the approach began in 2006.

The 68th round of National Sample Survey (2012) indicates that though the economic growth is pushing up income and consumption levels of the average Indian faster than before, income disparity is getting sharper, especially in rural India. Also, the share of food expenditure in household consumption has declined since 1993-1994, with a simultaneous decline in calorie intake.

Despite India’s big improvements, its human development index (HDI) score is ranked at 136 in a list of 186 countries, according to the United Nations Development Programme report, 2013. Meanwhile, a state-wise India Human Development Report (IDHR) by Institute of Applied Manpower Research, Planning Commission, Government of India, 2014, indicates that Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan remain at the bottom of the state-wise list.

The intra-regional trade among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries is exceedingly low as compared to the European and South East Asian countries. According to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) report, ‘The South Asian Century: Progressing Towards Regional Integration - A Study’, 2014, there is a lot of untapped economic opportunity within South Asia while there is also high dependence on extra-regional trade and investment.

Inter-state comparisons of socio-economic development of select states based on available indicators from the recent Economic Survey of India show some interesting results.

An overview of the Indian transport industry, which comprises freight and passenger transportation, as well as warehousing and cold storage.

Transport companies and state transport corporations are unwilling to adopt alternatives to diesel, like the bio ethanol mix and CNG usage for mass transport.