-The Times of India Congress will hold a massive rally on Sunday to defend its decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail, in what will showcase government's new assertiveness on reforms and the backing extended by the Congress brass in the face of populist criticism that giant retailers will harm farmers' interests and pop and mom stores. The party has, especially its units in Delhi and neighbouring Haryana, have pulled out all...

-Live Mint All file notings can be made public now except those explicitly exempted  The Union cabinet on Thursday decided to withdraw controversial draft amendments to the Right to Information (RTI) Act that sought to restrict disclosure of government file notings. The move allayed the concerns of rights activists. The draft amendments would have restricted disclosure of file notings only to social and developmental issues. The government had to drop the move following...

-The New York Times Blog The strength and direction of the Indian economy may be up for debate, but one remarkable fact is not: There has been massive growth in the number and wealth of billionaires in India since the economic liberalization measures in 1991. The phenomenon has often been compared to the United States’ experience in the latter part of the 19th century. This was a period evocatively described by Mark...

-Al Jazeera Treaty to ban chemicals that harmed the ozone layer came about when there was consensus between science and politics. In 1974, chemists Mario Molina and Frank Sherwood Rowland published a landmark article that demonstrated the ability of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to break down the ozone layer, the atmospheric region that plays a vital role in shielding humans and other life from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. It marked the opening salvo of...

-Tehelka The sentencing of Wall Street wizard Rajat Gupta in the historic insider trading case has led to the fall of a one-time icon for many Indians “This is where destiny is taking me.” This is what former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director, Rajat Gupta, told old friend Pramod Bhasin, as he sat with a glass of scotch in hand, in a mid-town bar in New York. Little did Gupta know how prophetic...