-Outlook Patna: Airing scepticism over the inter-linking of rivers serving the desired purpose, social activist Medha Patkar today charged Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with embarking on the project in the state without consulting people. "I am apprehensive about inter-linking of rivers serving the desired purpose and if it is so then chronic flood caused by Koshi river should have stopped after construction of dams," she said at the ninth biennial national...

-The Economist Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. But it is not inevitable, says Zanny Minton Beddoes IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux...

-The Hindu The movement by India Against Corruption is a call to the system as a whole to redefine the polity and the economy The one significant question being thrown us by the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement is this: is the movement for or against the country’s much revered democracy? The answer, as often in questions relating to society or politics, is neither a clear yes nor no. It is anti-democratic...

-The Hindu For the first 10 days after she was savagely assaulted and raped by eight men, 16-year-old Reshma (name changed) shuttered up her heart and mind, hoping silence would kill her memories of the violence, wrenching physical pain and the waves of shame, anger and fear. The men had threatened to circulate photographs of their crime if she complained, and sworn to kill her family. Now, everyone knows Reshma and her story...

-The Hindu For much of India, toilets are all about an issue of sanitation, health, privacy and dignity, and gender rights Let’s forget about what Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said and focus on what he is trying to do. It is not an easy campaign to launch and run. Imagine someone asking what do you do? And having to answer, I promote toilets — toilet construction and toilet use....