Reader responses to last week’s column on media-related malpractices during elections throw further light on this serious issue, which is now before the Press Council of India. Some of them contend that the alleged malpractices were neither new nor confined to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. No less shocking than the “coverage package” of Maharashtra or the “cash transfer scheme” of Andhra Pradesh is the “power of extraction” that allegedly played...

Exports from the world’s poorest countries should be granted duty- and quota-free access to markets, according to government officials, economists and academics attending a regional United Nations trade meeting as they warned against a turn towards protectionist policies. More than 100 participants at the first session of the Committee on Trade and Investment of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), which wrapped up today in...

Despite signs of an economic revival gathering pace around the globe, the millions of people laid off during the worst recession in 70 years are unlikely to see relief any time soon as joblessness is still climbing in many of the world's largest economies. Unemployment data typically lags other indicators of economic health as companies hold off adding staff in the early stages of a rebound. The upturns recorded recently in...

Huge investments, the emergence of media conglomerates and their explosive Growth have brought into focus new considerations that guide professional media decisions, Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Hamid Ansari said here on Wednesday. “Today, the demands of professional journalists are carefully balanced with the interests of owners and stakeholders of media companies and their cross media interests. The interplay of these conflicting demands is evident and [a] subject of...

A known enemy might be better than over-zealous friends. The high-pressure campaign by civil society activists for the candidature of former cop Kiran Bedi as chief information commissioner may hurt her prospects with government wary of the fierce lobbying. The aggressive campaign to rope in activists and celebrities to back Bedi is seen as a bid to force the government's hand over the appointment which is to be finalised through...