The audience, organisers, and fightersknow that sham wrestling is not to betaken seriously. But the World Economic Forum takes itself seriously. The comforting thing about the sham wrestling ‘championships' on television is that everybody knows they are a farce. Steroid-stuffed Cro-Magnons stomp the living daylights out of painkiller-primed Neanderthals. Good, unclean fun. The results are safely predictable. You should expect the 600-pound gorilla to overwhelm the 900-pound one in a staggering...

Recent events in south Asia have led to an unexpected reversal in the narrative of microfinance, long presented as a development success. Despite charges of poor treatment of clients, exaggeration of the impact on the poorest as well as the risks of credit bubbles, the sector can play a non-negligible role in reaching financial services to low-income households. In regulating the sector, there is need for caution in setting interest...

-The Hindu   Vice President Hamid Ansari has come out in favour of a media regulation framework, agreeing with Press Council Chairman Justice Markandey Katju that self-regulation has failed. “Collective self-regulation has yet to succeed in substantive measure because it is neither universal nor enforceable. Individual self-regulation has also failed due to personal predilection and the prevailing of personal interest over public interest,” said Mr. Ansari. He was speaking on the occasion of National...

Warning that delays in wage payments were crippling the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in Chhattisgarh's Maoist-affected districts, Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh outlined his Ministry's latest attempts to jumpstart development in these areas. In the past, Mr. Ramesh has spoken of prioritising development in the country's 60 ‘Left Wing Extremism' [LWE] districts as a crucial prong in his government's battle against the guerilla army of...

The power to publish, which was once the preserve of a few, is now commonplace: the privilege is accessible to anyone with an internet connection who has anything to say. While the powers of publishing may have been well dispersed, it is not so well understood that everyone is bound by the same rules and restrains that apply to traditional publishers and media professionals. Social media sites, which have played...