Many villages gradually get included in cities and urban people also migrate to villages transforming them into towns. Both phenomena require intensive study, including an examination of the defi ning criteria of a "town", and the estimates of urban population.

China's green movement is awakening and starting to receive global attention (see, for example, Q. Wang et al. Nature 489, 502; 2012). The municipal governments of Qidong and Shifang should be applauded for suspending two planned industrial plants likely to cause widespread pollution (Nature 488, 261–262; 2012). But there may be plans afoot to relocate these to rural areas. (Correspondence)

A first analysis of the summary results from the National Sample Survey Offi ce's 2011-12 consumer expenditure survey throws up some interesting results. The monthly per capita expenditure shows an accelerated growth across all deciles. However, expenditure inequality has widened in both rural and urban areas. A study of the "drought effect" in 2009-10 by using information from the 2004-05, 2009-10 and 2011-12 surveys suggests that the impact of the drought on the rural poor may have been softened by government programmes, while the urban poor were less fortunate that year.

Analysis of the features attributed to grassroots innovation shows them to be common to all innovations whether in rural, industrializing or industrial locations and does not justify splitting innovation into one with the suffix ‘grassroots’ and another without it as done in India’s current innovation policy. Examples and experience from industrialized countries bring out that innovation policies should adopt an integrated approach for all innovations irrespective of the location or process they emerge from.