While India’s new Right to Education Act seeks to bring free and compulsory education for all children, it seems to short-change them through an unrealistic vision of the private sector’s involvement. In August 2009, the Right to Education Act was passed in the Indian Parliament with no debate, by the fewer than 60 members who happened to be attending the session that day. Not that the Act was an open-and-shut...

Civil society organisations have demanded the speedy passage and implementation of the proposed National Health Bill, 2009, but with certain changes that ensure health as a universal entitlement to all sections of society. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, sought a National Health Act to ensure equitable distribution of medical facilities across the population. “The National Health Act should be on the lines of the Right to...

Eleven months after B. Ramalinga Raju, the former chairman of Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer Services, confessed to masterminding a $1.2 billion fraud at Indias fourth largest I.T. Outsourcing company, the dirt is still tumbling out. On Nov. 24, the country's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) released findings that show the alleged fraudulent accounting and embezzlement was far larger than originally thought. Raju and nine accomplices skimmed some $2.5 billion from the...

In the 1990s, Ahmed Khan’s company in Bangalore, India, churned out hundreds of thousands of plastic bags and other packaging material each month that eventually ended up as garbage. Now, he is in the business of scouring the city’s landfills and trash cans to reclaim some of that waste and pave the way to a more environmentally friendly enterprise. Mr. Khan, 60, is trying to solve two of the biggest...

Bhaskar Dutta’s recent article on this page confirms the new trends in educational planning since Kapil Sibal took charge. Action on the education front is long overdue, but it should not pre-empt ample debate. Such debate has barely got off the ground: Dutta’s article is a valuable contribution. We lament that with sadly few exceptions, our higher education system does not reach international standards. Most of our young talent goes...