-Open Democracy Were Ram Singh and his cohort simply claiming a notion of masculinity promoted every day by their role models in politics, business and the media? Ruchira Gupta writes of the steady creeping of a rape culture into the fabric of India, and what needs to be done to counter the idea that women are commodities Let us talk about Ram Singh, the chief rapist accused in the case of Damini,...

-The Hindu Beniwal’s claim of exclusive right to appoint Lokayukta is not in keeping with spirit of Constitution: Bench The Supreme Court has reiterated that the Governor is bound to act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, unless he acts as persona designata i.e., eo nomine under a particular statute or acts in his own discretion under the exceptions provided for in the Constitution itself. Upholding the appointment of...

-Economic and Political Weekly The recent debate on the acceptability of foreign direct investment in the retail sector in India has been mostly political. It is necessary to look into the pros and cons of FDI in retail from a purely economic point of view. This article identifi es the safeguards that should be undertaken before allowing giant multinationals to function in the country. Abhirup Sarkar (abhirup@isical.ac.in) is with the Indian Statistical...

-The World Bank It is generally thought that two groups are the big winners of the past two decades of globalization: the very rich, and the middle classes of emerging market economies. The statistical evidence for this has been cobbled together from a number of disparate sources. The evidence includes high GDP growth in emerging market economies, strong income gains recorded for those at the top of the income pyramid in the...

We are providing below the revised version of the above mentioned article (in pdf), which was originally published in Outlook, 14 November, 2011 Is India doing marvellously well, or is it failing terribly? Depending on whom you speak to, you could pick up either of those answers with some frequency. One story, very popular among a minority – but a large enough group - of Indians who are doing very well...