PRIMARY SCHOOLING: I Pratichi Trust (India) was established a decade ago, along with its sister across the border, Pratichi Trust (Bangladesh) [1]. The Bangladesh centre has been concentrating on the social progress of girls and young women there (it has worked particularly on supporting and training young women journalists reporting from rural Bangladesh), whereas here in India, the work of the Trust has been mainly focused on advancing primary education...

Government and regulators need to focus on the systemic risk engendered by excessive compensation. As calendar year 2009 draws to a close, it is bonus season for the financial sector in the West. In the last several months, the need to cap bonuses and compensation packages has been extensively discussed in the context of limiting the future impact of the next financial sector breakdown. On December 9, 2009, the UK was...

After three days of deadlock, the United Nations climate talks here are moving again, propelled by a quickly approaching deadline, the prospect of 130 world leaders in the same city, and “sustained pressure” by major developing countries, including India. With less than 24 hours left before the end of the summit, negotiators are back to working on both the Kyoto Protocol and long-term action draft texts. In other encouraging signs for...

Paul A. Samuelson (May 15, 1915 — December 13, 2009) has often been described as the foremost academic economist of the 20th century. Randall E. Parker, the economic historian, has called him the “Father of Modern Economics”. All this may be hotly disputed in Chicago, but in any case, Samuelson was the first American to receive the Nobel prize in economic sciences. The Swedish Royal Academy’s citation stated that he...

Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94. His death was announced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which Samuelson helped build into one of the world’s great centres of graduate education in economics. In receiving the Nobel Prize in 1970, Samuelson was credited with transforming his discipline...