-The Hindu Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decency and politics of reconciliation have been his undoing Last fortnight I had cloistered myself away in the hills for a spot of reflection and writing. I had chosen to deprive myself of blessings like newspapers, the television and internet; telephone connectivity was at best erratic and in any case it was turned off most of the time. During one occasional moment of connectedness I got...

Araria, Bihar: If the government had bought bicycles to give them to schoolgirls, you would have had a bicycle scam in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar famously said, explaining why he gave bicycle vouchers to families. But when it came to giving land to landless Mahadalit families — the poorest and most marginalised of Dalits — the government forgot this wisdom.   Result: Allegedly acting in concert, government officials and brokers ganged...

A day after partymen raised a stink over the UPA’s alleged policy paralysis at the Congress working committee meeting, the government moved to make amendments to the pension bill — one of the reforms measures that had been hit by coalition politics — at Thursday’s cabinet meeting. A cabinet note mentioned that the government had decided to address the concerns of all stakeholders and to build a broad consensus on...

The cartoon controversy provides the possibility of interrogating the functioning of the academic system to understand its relationship with the downtrodden masses. A new deliberation is needed in order to make the academic world more sensitive and responsive towards the issues and concerns of the subaltern-oppressed communities. This will be an ethical incentive for the present-day dalit movement in India and can bring greater democratisation to the education system. Harish Wankhede...

-The Times of India Asia and the Pacific is consuming more resources than its ecosystems can sustain, threatening the future of the region's beleaguered forests, rivers, and oceans as well as the livelihoods of those who depend on them, says a new joint report by the Asian Development Bank ( ADB) and WWF. The joint ADB-WWF study, Ecological Footprint and Investment in Natural Capital in Asia and the Pacific, focuses on ways...