Sixty-five years after Independence, only nine states - Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Goa, Delhi, Haryana, Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu - of 28 have been officially declared totally electrified.
In 1996, more than 2, 000 people were killed or lost at sea when a cyclone struck India's major crop-growing state of Andhra Pradesh.
Two researchers, Karthik Muralidharan of the University of California at San Diego and Venkatesh Sundararaman of the World Bank, tested that idea in 300 state-run schools in Andhra Pradesh in India.
In India, where things too often are still done in triplicate, Andhra Pradesh's pioneering e-seva system lets people pay their utility bills, transfer money, buy railway tickets and so on.
There were at least two outbreaks of election related violence on Tuesday: up to eight people were injured in clashes in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, and in Indian-administered Kashmir the former central government minister, Maqbool Dar, escaped a hand grenade attack while touring his constituency.
Elements of the approach are similar to that in Andhra Pradesh: farmers gather in water-users' associations to plan and operate irrigation services, for example.
Based in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, the organization has a 75-year history of community service.
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Perhaps most worrying, with the exception of Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, the worst-affected states are also among India's least capable.
Mr Singh has inducted half-a-dozen ministers from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, where the Congress has been fast losing ground to a breakaway group led by the son of a former loyalist leader who died in a helicopter crash and the mounting movement for a new Telangana state.
Speaking in parliament Friday, federal Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that Thursday evening's blasts occurred at a bus stop and a canteen - about 150 metres from each other - in the Dilsukhnagar neighborhood of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state.
They acknowledge that over the years their production has increased but they still do not get remunerative prices - in two of India's most progressive states, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, a number of farmers have committed suicide over the last five years because they have not been able to repay their debts.
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