Gujarat

The west Indian state of Gujarat is flipping the switch on Asia's largest solar power field, as just part of its 600 megawatt solar energy addition to India's power grid. The Gujarat Solar Park, spread across a desolate swath of desert, accounts for 214 MW of photovoltaic solar capacity, making it larger than China's 200 MW Golmud Solar Park. The project gives a serious boost to India's renewable energy ambitions. India aims for solar power to account for 3 percent of national capacity — or 1,000 MW — by 2013.

The west Indian state of Gujarat is flipping the switch on Asia's largest solar power field, as just part of its 600 megawatt solar energy addition to India's power grid. The Gujarat Solar Park, spread across a desolate swath of desert, accounts for 214 MW of photovoltaic solar capacity, making it larger than China's 200 MW Golmud Solar Park. The project gives a serious boost to India's renewable energy ambitions. India aims for solar power to account for 3 percent of national capacity — or 1,000 MW — by 2013.

AHMADABAD, India - Tainted home-brewed liquor that poor workers living in slums drank over the weekend has left at least 43 dead in western India, police said yesterday. Another 23 were battling for their lives in three hospitals in Gujarat state’s main city, Ahmadabad, said S.S. Khandwawala, the director-general of state police. Deaths from drinking illegally brewed alcohol are common in India, where few people can afford licensed liquor. Known locally as desi daru, illicit liquor is often spiked with pesticides or chemicals to increase its potency.

NEW DELHI - A court in India found 31 people guilty yesterday of killing 33 Muslims in riots in Gujarat state in 2002. They were convicted of murder, arson, rioting, and criminal conspiracy, and were sentenced to life in prison, along with fines. Forty-two other defendants were acquitted. The mass trial followed an investigation ordered by the country's Supreme Court after the police failed to take effective action in response to the riots, which erupted March 1, 2002. That evening, a mob of Hindu rioters surrounded houses belonging to Muslims in Sardarpura village in the district of...

NEW DELHI - A court in India found 31 people guilty yesterday of killing 33 Muslims in riots in Gujarat state in 2002. They were convicted of murder, arson, rioting, and criminal conspiracy, and were sentenced to life in prison, along with fines. Forty-two other defendants were acquitted. The mass trial followed an investigation ordered by the country's Supreme Court after the police failed to take effective action in response to the riots, which erupted March 1, 2002. That evening, a mob of Hindu rioters surrounded houses belonging to Muslims in Sardarpura village in the district of...

AHMADABAD, India - Opposition leaders accused police of abetting bootlegging in western India, saying they were partly responsible for the recent deaths from illegally brewed poisonous liquor. The death toll rose to 112 yesterday. Doctors from across Gujarat state have been rushed to Ahmadabad to assist in the treatment of another 225 people who have been hospitalized, said an officer at the Police Control Room. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose his name to the media.

Two Lexington groups have canceled an appearance by the author of a Mahatma Gandhi biography that’s been banned in part of India, the second cancellation this month for the author. Joseph Lelyveld’s “Great Soul,’’ about Gandhi’s stuggle for social justice, was banned in the western state of Gujarat last month after reviews hinted that Gandhi had a homosexual relationship. Such relationships were illegal in India until 2009 and still carry a stigma. Lelyveld, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former executive editor of The New York Times, said yesterday the book never...

GAUHATI, India - Police have arrested three people and are investigating whether local militants received help from other terrorist groups in carrying out coordinated attacks that killed at least 77 people in India's troubled northeast, officials said yesterday. Two people were taken into custody because their vehicles - a car and a motorcycle - are believed to have been used in two of the 13 blasts that rocked Assam state Thursday, said Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, a state inspector-general of police.

BOMBAY -- Never mind pets, smokers, or loud music at 2 a.m. House hunters in Bombay increasingly are being asked: "Do you eat meat?" If yes, the deal is off. As this city of 16 million becomes the cosmopolitan main nerve of a booming Indian economy, real estate is increasingly intersecting with cuisine. More middle-class Indians are moving in, more of them are vegetarian, and the law is on their side. "Some people are very strict. They won't sell to a nonvegetarian even if he offers a higher price than a vegetarian," said real estate broker Norbert Pinto.

NEW DELHI -- Heavy rain inundated villages in western India, collapsing houses, washing away telephone lines, and killing at least 24 people a week after farmers prayed for rain to end a prolonged dry spell. Rescue workers also found 10 more bodies as flood waters receded in eastern Bihar state, relief officer Upendra Sharma said yesterday. In Bangladesh, 22 people were reported dead from drowning, diarrhea, dysentery, and snakebites Wednesday and yesterday. The new deaths raised the toll from six weeks of monsoon floods in South Asia to 1,883,...

Two Lexington groups have canceled an appearance by the author of a Mahatma Gandhi biography that’s been banned in part of India, the second cancellation this month for the author. Joseph Lelyveld’s “Great Soul,’’ about Gandhi’s stuggle for social justice, was banned in the western state of Gujarat last month after reviews hinted that Gandhi had a homosexual relationship. Such relationships were illegal in India until 2009 and still carry a stigma. Lelyveld, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former executive editor of The New York Times, said yesterday the book never alleges Gandhi was...

AHMADABAD, India - Opposition leaders accused police of abetting bootlegging in western India, saying they were partly responsible for the recent deaths from illegally brewed poisonous liquor. The death toll rose to 112 yesterday. Doctors from across Gujarat state have been rushed to Ahmadabad to assist in the treatment of another 225 people who have been hospitalized, said an officer at the Police Control Room. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose his name to the media.

AHMADABAD, India - Tainted home-brewed liquor that poor workers living in slums drank over the weekend has left at least 43 dead in western India, police said yesterday. Another 23 were battling for their lives in three hospitals in Gujarat state’s main city, Ahmadabad, said S.S. Khandwawala, the director-general of state police. Deaths from drinking illegally brewed alcohol are common in India, where few people can afford licensed liquor. Known locally as desi daru, illicit liquor is often spiked with pesticides or chemicals to increase its potency.

On a muggy March afternoon three years ago, I sat at a desk in the sheltered silence of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and looked for lessons, not from the energetic embrace of Mumbai, just beyond the window of my room, but from an elusive idea more distant. I had spent the previous several days walking with hundreds of Indians, Hindus and Muslims among them, in the historic footsteps of the spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, known to many as the Mahatma. His insistence on nonviolent action nearly a century ago challenged British rule of India and traditions of conflict around the...

GAUHATI, India - Police have arrested three people and are investigating whether local militants received help from other terrorist groups in carrying out coordinated attacks that killed at least 77 people in India's troubled northeast, officials said yesterday. Two people were taken into custody because their vehicles - a car and a motorcycle - are believed to have been used in two of the 13 blasts that rocked Assam state Thursday, said Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, a state inspector-general of police.

BOMBAY -- Never mind pets, smokers, or loud music at 2 a.m. House hunters in Bombay increasingly are being asked: "Do you eat meat?" If yes, the deal is off. As this city of 16 million becomes the cosmopolitan main nerve of a booming Indian economy, real estate is increasingly intersecting with cuisine. More middle-class Indians are moving in, more of them are vegetarian, and the law is on their side. "Some people are very strict. They won't sell to a nonvegetarian even if he offers a higher price than a vegetarian," said real estate broker Norbert Pinto.

On a muggy March afternoon three years ago, I sat at a desk in the sheltered silence of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and looked for lessons, not from the energetic embrace of Mumbai, just beyond the window of my room, but from an elusive idea more distant. I had spent the previous several days walking with hundreds of Indians, Hindus and Muslims among them, in the historic footsteps of the spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, known to many as the Mahatma. His insistence on nonviolent action nearly a century ago challenged British rule of India and traditions of conflict around the world.

India's Supreme Court has banned the Exxon Valdez from entering India, saying the ship involved in one of the worst U.S. oil spills will not be allowed in for dismantling until it has been decontaminated. The ship, now known as the "Oriental Nicety," entered Indian waters last week and was headed for the western Indian state of Gujarat, when the Supreme Court gave its order, environmental activist Gopal Krishna said Wednesday. The ship was bought recently by the Hong Kong-based subsidiary of an Indian shipbreaking firm and was being taken to the...

NEW DELHI -- Heavy rain inundated villages in western India, collapsing houses, washing away telephone lines, and killing at least 24 people a week after farmers prayed for rain to end a prolonged dry spell. Rescue workers also found 10 more bodies as flood waters receded in eastern Bihar state, relief officer Upendra Sharma said yesterday. In Bangladesh, 22 people were reported dead from drowning, diarrhea, dysentery, and snakebites Wednesday and yesterday. The new deaths raised the toll from six weeks of monsoon floods in South Asia to 1,883, according to official figures.