-The Indian Express Here lies Ashis Nandy, who died of a bad joke". This would be the most appropriate epitaph for Nandy, insisted my colleague and sinologist, late Giri Deshingkar, in his rare moment of black humour. The reference, of course, was to Nandy's unusual way with words. Over the last four decades, Ashis Nandy has presented his insights through some very powerful symbols. He loves paradoxes and uses aphorisms, ironies...

-Frontline While the broadcast media often arrogates to itself the right to speak in the name of the nation, catering to their “customers” in the process, intellectuals have a duty to question such practices and resist being co-opted by the channels. It may not be far-fetched to speak in terms of a new “mediacracy” riding the airwaves. The movers and shakers perched on the prime time news shows on television seem,...

-Outlook Only 30 per cent of Indian households boast of having at least one member with a ‘portable identity’ like a Passport or a Driving License. Such an identity, points out the economist from New York, is necessary for access to institutions and credit, which is why the biometric based Unique Identification (UID) project is going to be a game-changer. An alumnus of IIT, Madras,, from where he obtained a B.Tech...

-The Hindu Gopal Subramanium, former Solicitor-General of India, a member of the Justice J.S. Verma-led Committee that was constituted last month in the aftermath of the gang rape and murder of a young student in the national capital, to recommend amendments to laws relating to offences against women, speaks to Sandeep Joshi on how it went about its tasks, the rationale behind some of its key recommendations and its expectations of...

-PTI Triggering a fresh debate in the context of the brutal gangrape in Delhi and youth protests that followed, President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday raised a question whether the country's legislature reflects emerging India or does it need radical reforms. Asking whether corruption has overtaken morality in life, he said elected representatives must win back people's confidence and the anxiety and the restlessness of the youth has to be channelised towards change...