[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.

Astronomers believe the Earth began to accrete more than 4.6 billion years ago.

KODAKING as you go” is no longer going to be an exclusive vice of sun-glassed and putteed females imbued with a square-jawed determination to make the most of their travels from there to the point of exhaustion.

But at all times the place is worth a visit to those who can admire flat scenery, and the artist will delight in the Cuyp-like effects of the oxen and horses and groups of pilgrims (for some are here always) seen against the delicate aerial mountain distances; and in the beautiful colouring of the plain, pink with asphodel in spring, or golden with fenocchio.