India, March 4 -- From the large-scale eco-friendly practices to the timeless wisdom of Bharatiya traditions, Mahakumbh offered a new model for development in harmony with nature

The Valeriepieris Circle is a fascinating concept. Imagine a circle on the world map. The circle is centered around the Beibu Gulf, off the east coast of Vietnam, has a radius of 4,000 kilometers, and includes Southern China, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Now this is where it gets stupefying. This circle covers just about 9 per cent of the world's land-mass, but over 50 per cent of the world's population.

This simple reality, clubbed with colonial impoverishment, explains why many people in this circle lived in filth and squalor. Most "progressiv...