Disputes over intellectual property rights can delay the spread of clean technologies to the developing world, but they are not wholly to blame.

Analysis of the features attributed to grassroots innovation shows them to be common to all innovations whether in rural, industrializing or industrial locations and does not justify splitting innovation into one with the suffix ‘grassroots’ and another without it as done in India’s current innovation policy. Examples and experience from industrialized countries bring out that innovation policies should adopt an integrated approach for all innovations irrespective of the location or process they emerge from.

On 15 July, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi hosted a group of professionals working on rural housing in diverse geographies of the country. The agenda for the meeting, which was co-hosted by several partners, was to present a portal built for the rural housing sector (www.ruralhousingnetwork.com) and to get feedback before the portal goes live in a month.

It is a government agency that was set up specially to fund non-profits working on rural development. But of late the Council for People’s Action and Advancement of Rural Technology (CAPART) has been plagued by allegations of corruption and inefficiency. After a few failed attempts to reform CAPART, the government has now decided to overhaul the agency which has close to 12,000 NGOs associated with it.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to increase the government's R&D spending and create incentives for the private sector to increase spending on science and technology as well.

In 1905, Sir William Osler, the most influential physician of his time, stepped down from the medical faculty of Johns Hopkins University at the age of 55. At his farewell, he emphasized that the “effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 40—these 15 golden years of plenty.” Many of us, who are old but still active like myself, may like to strongly disagree. But the power of the creative prime in this age group is irrefutable.

Preparations for the Rio+20 United Nations conference on sustainable development have begun, but the first round of preparatory meetings did not address important issues such as sustainable resource use, production and consumption.

The design of overhead lines (new lines, uprating or refurbishment) in the deregulated environment is critical to the competiveness and profitability of the utility company. Should, for example, the design limit the power transfer to levels, which prohibit sales of MW at peak periods, the losses can be enormous. This fact, as well as the limitations imposed on capital expenditure, make the optimisation of line design a critical activity.