“Clean energy has gone from being the ‘right thing to do’ in combating climate change, to being the most cost-effective option for many energy-insecure countries,” said Carrie Thompson, deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Regional Development Mission for Asia, during a day-long conference on renewable energy at the Wilson Center on October 27 (read part one of our coverage here).

The world has entered a new energy era. Last year, for the first time in four decades, the global economy grew without an increase in CO2 emissions, according to the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21^st Century.

Maternal mortality causes 56,000 deaths every year in India, accounting for 20 percent of maternal deaths around the world. Women who are born into the lower castes or are tribals – India’s indigenous groups – are especially likely to lack access to quality health care. Over 40 percent of these women also belong to the lowest wealth quintile.

The feats that pregnant women perform under some of the most rudimentary conditions are sometimes unimaginable.

Camels pulling wooden carts loaded with coconuts plod down the main road amid speeding motorcycles, buses, rickshaws, and cars. Farmers sit atop slow-moving oxcarts loaded with grasses and other cattle feed. In this region of central Gujarat, India, it appears that rural life has not changed for decades.

When you shop for a new refrigerator or pair of shoes, where do you look for information about products? Do you log onto Amazon and read reviews? Check Consumer Reports for lab-verified results? Consult your neighbor or mom?

The Sundarbans – a collection of densely populated islands in India’s sprawling Ganges Delta – are so remote that the only way to get there is by boat. But human traffickers still manage to get in, and that’s left many families with missing daughters.

An advisory released this August by the U.S. National Weather Service warned this year’s El Niño could be among the strongest ever recorded, lasting well into the first few months of 2016.