The alleged incident of two quarry workers in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district being forced to swallow faeces draws attention to larger issues. NORMALLY the villages and hamlets in and around Thiruvakkarai in Tamil Nadu's Villupuram district are woken up by the loud noise and vibrations caused by the blasting of rocks and the pounding of boulders with sledge hammers, apart from the rattling sound of tipper lorries transporting stones from 40-odd...

Muhammad Yunus, the economist who founded Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, visited Mumbai recently where he spoke to India Ink about his vision of “social businesses,” his forced departure from Grameen and the recent controversies that have dogged micro-finance in India and elsewhere. An edited, condensed version of the interview follows: Q. The microfinance industry has gone through an existential crisis in the last few years. Why did the industry fall from grace? A. See,...

-The Economic Times It is a matter of great regret that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's conduct has converted one incident of rape into a series of offences against human dignity and propriety. The rape took place on February 6, a woman being gang-raped inside a car at gunpoint. She had trouble registering a case. When the police finally obliged, chief minister Mamata Banerjee called it a fabricated case, a political...

Students of the women's College in Aligarh Muslim University are waging a bitter struggle for a facility their counterparts in other institutions would take for granted-access to the university's central library. Now, in a concession to these undergraduate women students, AMU has decided provided them online access to the catalogue of books. The varsity says the girls can choose the books which would then be issued and delivered to them. The 100-year-old...

Decoding the 'mystery' behind Maoists, the Centre has for the first time brought out in open many facts that have hitherto remained in official papers and urged aam aadmis to expose true colours of Red rebels in whatever ways they can, including use of social media like Facebook and twitter. In a document, brought out in the form of frequently asked questions (FAQs) last week, the Union home ministry has classified...