-Outlook Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz is one of the world’s leading economists. A former chief economist at the World Bank and currently University Professor at the Columbia Business School, he was recently in India to attend an international conference on development and to promote his new book, The Price of Inequality. He spoke to Pranay Sharma about growing inequality in the world and the challenges facing India. Excerpts: * Your coinage,...

-The Hindu India Against Corruption has broken the unwritten code that politicians will not target each other’s kin, and in doing so has taken over the role the traditional Opposition and media should be playing The civil society formation, India Against Corruption, is a beast most find stunning and enthralling, yet few are able to define its precise nature. The confusion over IAC’s personality arises from the many simultaneous roles its activists...

Rising corn prices in the United States brought about by biofuel mandates have cost developing countries 6.6 billion dollars over the past six years, says a study by Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University (GDAE).  Net Food Importing Developing Countries, among the most vulnerable to food price increases, incurred ethanol-related costs of $2.1 billion, the study concludes. (See highlights and the links below). The recent spike in world food prices...

-The Indian Express The International Monetary Fund’s recent downgrading of the growth forecast for India from 6.2 per cent to 4.9 per cent for 2012, which came on the heels of the decline in the actual growth rate to below 5.5 per cent in the first half of 2012, has brought reforms back to the centrestage of the policy discourse. Which reforms are needed and why? India’s growth trajectory has been unique....

-The Indian Express After QS and Times Higher Education published their rankings of universities across the world, higher education has become the subject of fierce debate in India. The highest ranking institutions from India are the IITs, but even these do not figure in the top 200. The general refrain — why does no Indian university find a place among the top global universities? Unfortunately, given our present policies on higher education...