For many in rural India, the future is urban
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AMINAGAR, India  - Neerpal Singh looks at the morning mist hovering over his sugarcane fields and breathes in the brisk winter air, yet to be warmed by the rising sun.
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NAGAPATTINAM, India  - It took just a few seconds  for Shiva Shankari, like her village, to lose her future.
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For decades, India focused on its domestic economy and grew more slowly. But all that is starting to change.
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KANAIPUR, India  - Every morning 10-year-old Indian villager Nipa Haldar crosses a canal in a small boat and trudges along a mud road for 20 minutes to reach school, pursuing her dream of becoming a nurse.
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More than half the world's people will live in cities by 2008, mainly in developing countries, the UN says.
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As urbanites with rising incomes are demanding better air and water, the countryside is increasingly becoming a dumping ground.
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Bombay to Mumbai is familiar enough, but Bangalore to Bangaluru? A trend gains speed.
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With its rolling hills, lakes and rivers, a rural retreat is attracting more and more buyers eager to escape city life.
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Even as the world's urban population explodes, many cities face potential extinction.
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AHMEDABAD, India  - Among the millions around the  world whose lives will change when global textile quotas expire  at the end of the year are the illiterate women garment workers  of India's Gujarat state.
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Millions of illiterate people in remote, rural India could soon have access to an education, as a satellite devoted exclusively to long distance learning was launched on Monday.
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For decades, India had followed a route to economic development strikingly different from that of countries like Japan, South Korea or China. But all that is starting to change.
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Smaller cellphone companies are feeling pressures from national carriers entering rural areas now that urban markets are saturated.
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As chain stores move to capitalize on India's emerging middle class, opposition is growing from its legions of small shopkeepers and state governments
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Cities are fighting for young professionals, a demographic group seen as key to an economic future.
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NOIDA, India  - The new supermarket was slated as the shape of retail to come in globalizing India. Now shutters covered its windows, staff meandered outside and customers picked final bargains before its closure.
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FARIDABAD, India -- Ashok Gupta's modest plastic-packaging factory is the oldest in town, and its age shows. The root of all his problems is electricity.