A Hindu trust in India’s eastern state of Bihar has begun building a replica of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple. A foundation-laying ceremony for the $20m (£12.5m) project has been held 25km (16 miles) from Bihar’s capital Patna, on the banks of the Ganges. The builders say the result will be the world’s largest Hindu temple. More→

Yoga has given India a stunning international shimmer.  The ethos, values and practices of a long ago past, of a far away country, seem to have been directly, successfully embedded in the minds and bodies of millions in a manner in which even IT and Bollywood—put together—haven’t, can’t. There isn’t a city without its local yoga guru dispensing his/her wisdom. Cities like Mysore and Poona resemble mini Olympics Games villages every day of the year. More→

For India’s founders, political freedom was their great prize. Yet decades on, what that freedom has delivered measures up poorly for many. For India’s business elites eager to compete with China, for the middle classes fed up with corruption, for radical intellectuals, for desperate citizens who have taken up arms against the state – democracy in India is a story of unravelling illusions.Democratic politics itself has come to be seen as impeding the decisive action needed to expand economic possibilities.

In a society of swiftly inflating expectations, where old deference crumbles before youthful impatience, frustration with democracy is perhaps not surprising.

The citizenry’s ire expresses perhaps instinctively something that India’s government, caught in inertial routines, is in danger of missing. Societies are at their most vulnerable when things are improving – not when they are stagnant. More→

India will hold its first Grand Prix this weekend – a glitzy coming-out party for an emerging economic juggernaut that is lost on villagers like Meera, standing by a fetid pond near the brand new Formula One race track with a child covered in warts. More→