-The Hindustan Times Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has taken his wrangle with finance minister P Chidambaram and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar over the Centre's job guarantee programme to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's court. Stung by their repeated assertions that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) schemes were having a negative impact on the availability of farm labour, Ramesh shot a note to the PM to "respond to the concerns raised by...

-The Hindu Thanks to manufactured debates on TV, there is no time for irony and nuance nor are we able to distinguish between a charlatan and an academician Now that the Supreme Court has provided some sort of relief against harassment to Professor Ashis Nandy, it has become incumbent upon all liberal voices to ponder over the processes and arguments that combined to ensure that an eminent scholar had to slink out...

-Outlook The sorts of corruption that matter are a purview of privileged     “An intellectual man can be a good man but he may easily be a rogue. Similarly an intellectual class may be a band of high-souled persons, ready to help, ready to emancipate erring humanity, or it may easily be a gang of crooks or a body of advocates of narrow clique from which it draws its support.”     —B.R....

-The Indian Express At a recent seminar organised to review the progress made by Muslims since the 2006 Justice Rajinder Sachar Committee report was tabled, speakers debated on whether or not there’s been any positive change on the ground level. Three members of the panel — Justice Sachar, economist Abusaleh Shariff and academician T K Oomen — discussed with experts and politicians what had changed for Muslims in the last six years. Defending...

-Outlook Opposing direct cash transfer and FDI in retail, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh today said inordinate delay in decision making and complicated procedures for statutory clearances were hurting the country's economy growth and investor sentiment. He told a meeting of National Development Council (NDC) here, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, that the 12th plan has been made on "patronage model" and impinges on the autonomy of the states by making...