My favorite thing to do on holidays abroad is to take long walks in the evenings in the new city I find myself in – most recently, that was Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. However much you love India, and I find myself missing the buzz of Delhi within a week of being abroad, there’s one thing as an urban working woman that I wish I could import into India (yes, even more than some great infrastructure) – the liberating safety one feels even when walking alone.

Unfortunately, many Indian cities – and certainly Delhi – don’t allow us that freedom. Yes, you can drive, and be safe in your cars. But it’s exceedingly rare to see a young woman walking down the street beyond 8 or 9 pm here. In fact, that Delhi is the country’s “rape capital” is a shameful tag we all live with. Our newspapers often carry scary tales of crimes against women – like the recent rape of a young woman who worked in a pub in Gurgaon, or a student gang-raped in a moving car in Noida, both popular suburbs of Delhi.

Despite the hue and cry made in the media over such incidents, little has changed. Depressingly, even less can be expected to if the investigation carried out by news organizations NDTV and Tehelka are to be believed. A joint investigation carried out by these two media brands caught nearly 30 policemen on tape, and exposed the shocking views they held on rape victims. Without exception, the 30 senior cops “caught on camera” have various takes along the old lines of “she asked for it,” “she dressed too provocatively,” “it was about money and when that didn’t work out, she cried foul” or “women who drink alcohol and stay out late at night are just asking for it.”

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India and Pakistan are set to review their often tense bilateral relations at the highest level on April 8, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosts an informal lunch for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who will be coming to India on a short private visit.

Zardari will be arriving in New Delhi on Sunday morning with a 40-member delegation. Only one cabinet minister, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, is expected to be part of Zardari’s delegation, which will be comprised mostly of family members. Significantly, though, Singh is expected to have a half hour private meeting with Zardari during his visit.

Singh’s office is said to have toyed with the idea of making Zardari’s visit an official one, but it was decided that an informal approach was best as there simply wouldn’t have been time to put anything politically meaningful together at such short notice.

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“The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” one of Aesop’s most famous fables, is a familiar story. It concerns a shepherd boy who repeatedly raises the alarm about a wolf, only to see his flock meet its demise when weary villagers ignore his cries for help when a wolf finally does appear. Social activist Anna Hazare and his team could learn a thing or two from this tale.

When they first raised a war cry against corruption last May, people responded to their call in huge numbers. In August, people flocked onto the streets in support of the Lokpal (Ombudsman) Bill. A few months later, when the alarm was sounded yet again, this time in Mumbai, the response was weaker; Team Anna’s cries over corruption seemed to be losing their impact.

Disheartened by the failure in Mumbai, the social activist decided to shift the venue to Delhi. On March 25, Anna Hazare held a daylong fast to mobilize people against corruption and spread awareness over the need for an all-powerful ombudsman to tackle graft in society. Without waiting for people’s spontaneous support, Team Anna mobilized a sizable crowd to demonstrate the popularity of their movement.

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This week, The Indian Express published a full-page story claiming that the Indian Army had moved two units towards New Delhi without notifying the government on January 16. The story suggested, without actually using the “c” word, that the hitherto apolitical Indian Army was contemplating a coup.

The reverberations in the Indian polity were understandably deafening.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh led his United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in contemptuously rejecting the report, dubbing it “alarmist.”

On the sidelines of a Padma award function in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, he explained: “The defense ministry has clarified the position. These are alarmist reports. These should not be taken at face value. The Army chief's office is an exalted office. All of us have an obligation to do nothing that lowers its dignity.”

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The United States has announced a $10 million reward for Pakistan-based Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who is alleged by India to have conceived and choreographed the November, 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai that claimed the lives of 164 people and injured hundreds more.

Saeed is head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and founder of terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, but is believed by some to have abandoned the leadership of the latter organization after being detained following an attack on the Indian parliament that took place in December 2001. However, the United Nations has described Jamaat-ud-Dawa as simply a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Saeed was released from house arrest in 2009 and is a free man in Pakistan. The size of the newly announced bounty reflects his perceived importance – the United States is only offering a $10 million reward for three others allegedly involved in terrorism (al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri tops the list, with a bounty of $25 million.)

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Lutyensway (sometimes known as Lutyens Bungalow Zone) India’s own version of the Washington D.C. Beltway, has split into two factions: one rooting for Chief of Army Staff Gen. V. K. Singh, and the other wanting him to go the way of Muammar Gaddafi.

Most of the Indian public seems sympathetic to the general’s lament that purchases of defense equipment in India are carried out through an opaque process and – surprise, surprise – may involve bribes. However, those who are or were involved in the business of government, whether as ministers or as officials, seem to be of the view that the Army Chief has “gone berserk,” in the words of retired diplomat Brajesh Mishra, who was passed over for promotion by Indira Gandhi in the 1980s but who was appointed National Security Advisor and Principal Secretary to Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee in 1998.

Mishra is contemptuous of Defense Minister A. K. Antony’s refusal to sack the army chief, and points to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance decision in 1998 to sack then-Chief of Naval Staff Vishnu Bhagwat “for insubordination.” That was the only sacking of the chief of a wing of the military by a civilian government, and ushered in a repeat of the 1959 to 1962 period, when military advice was ignored in favor of “broader” considerations, a situation that continues to this day. Adm. Bhagwat had doubts about the suitability of Vice Admiral Harinder Singh to be appointed his deputy, and made his doubts known in public.  The naval chief was less outspoken on his view that more attention needed to be paid to indigenization of naval production, including through the involvement of domestic private industry. Such views angered the lobbies within the government that sought a continuation of the partnership between government and foreign suppliers that had made India the largest defense market in the world, despite its poverty-stricken population and substantial domestic scientific and manufacturing capacity.

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Malnutrition is nothing new for many Indians. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2011 Global Hunger Index, the upshot of this perennial problem is that about 60 million children in India are underweight and malnourished, while 21 percent of the population as a whole general is malnourished. Unfortunately, this problem is unlikely to change anytime soon, with the recent introduction of the National Food Security Bill threatening to continue market inefficiencies in food supply and extend the problem of malnutrition far into the future.

The developmental repercussions of this situation are dramatic, not only for individuals who suffer numerous health issues resulting from malnutrition, but also for the economy at large. Malnutrition results in a loss of productivity, indirect losses from impaired cognitive development, and losses from increased longterm healthcare costs.

According to a report by the World Bank, productivity losses in India due to stunted growth, iodine deficiencies, and iron deficiencies are equivalent to almost 3 percent of GDP.  While during the colonial era famine was the primary result of “food insecurity,” malnutrition has replaced it as the chief concern of legislators and economists.

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That India’s growth story is faltering isn’t a secret. In fact, it’s interesting how quickly things can change. Up until about a year ago, India seemed on the threshold of economic stardom – courted by global companies as a must location, and buoyed by forecasts that its decade-long robust growth might continue in perpetuity.

Today, things look very different – thanks to slowing growth, rising inflation and policy paralysis in the union government. Reforms have been stalled, costs have gone up and “good” trade and business deals seem to be drying up. In fact, some global publications and economic forecasters have even suggested that the “I” in BRIC (the grouping of fast-growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China) should be changed from India to Indonesia.

Thankfully, over the past year, I’ve personally been able to find some things to be positive about as the editor of a magazine that focuses on small- and mid-size companies in India. India has come to be known as an exciting crucible for entrepreneurial ideas – more and more, one sees “for-choice” entrepreneurs (investment bankers, marketing honchos and quality management students) give up their expected career choices to found companies of their own.

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Thursday’s daylong BRICS summit, hosted for the first time by India, made the right noises on contentious issues like Iran and Syria.

The five leaders – Presidents Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Hu Jintao (China) and Jacob Zuma (South Africa) and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh – unanimously supported Iran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Singh cautioned against rocking Iran’s boat too hard through “political disruptions” that would inevitably trigger volatility in global energy markets.

The leaders also came up with a unanimous position on Syria, advising the international community to deal with the crisis peacefully, but in a way that ensures the legitimate aspirations of all sections of Syrian society are taken into account while respecting the country’s sovereignty.

Economically speaking, the grouping signed two pacts to boost intra-BRICS trade in their local currencies by: (i) extending credit facilities in the local currency and (ii) confirming the BRICS multilateral letter of credit confirmation facility. Once the two pacts are implemented in letter and spirit, intra-BRICS trade, which currently stands at less than $230 billion, is expected to climb to $500 billion by 2015.

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Though the ongoing crisis involving Iran’s nuclear weapons has consumed the minds of many international policymakers in recent weeks, the chill in the U.S.-India relationship has also become a key concern. Indeed, even the relatively close relationship between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hasn’t been able to disguise the intractable geopolitical differences between India and the United States.

India, dependent on the Iran for nearly 12 percent of its oil supplies, refused to cooperate with sanctions and has continued trading with Tehran, to the chagrin of U.S. policymakers. However, through this crisis, Indian policymakers may have found the ideal moment to promote Indian power by ushering in the age of the rupee as a major regional currency.

Until now, India, like other countries has relied on dollars for international trade, including the purchase of petroleum products. As part of the deal to circumvent Washington’s sanctions, India agreed with Iran to pay part of its oil bill in rupees and other goods. The most recent sanctions all but cut off the complicated network of middle-men and banks that India had used to pay Iran.  With a full commitment to use rupees instead, the moment to develop the infrastructure and capacity needed for a global market for rupees may have finally arrived. While this development has been long coming regionally, it will certainly speed up the process. Just last June, the Singapore Exchange announced that they would begin clearing out rupee denominated securities, a step signifying the currency’s gradual rise in importance. The Dubai Commodities and Gold Exchange, meanwhile, announced the creation of a rupee-denominated options contract last September.

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