-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....

-Outlook UPA’s populist trumpcard of 2008—the farm loan waiver—has fallen short of its intended target, as a CAG audit throws up The Scheme     2008 Union finance minister P. Chidambaram announces farmer debt waiver and relief scheme in budget; PM Manmohan Singh writes to beneficiaries “seeking their support”     Rs 52,275 cr Total money that was disbursed to eligible farmers across the nation as part of loan waiver scheme     Rs 50,000 The loan...

-The Hindu Although Ashis Nandy has explained the context in which he made his corruption remark, the furious pace of TV and Internet does not allow space for a re-evaluation As I watched the clip of Ashis Nandy, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, belligerently asserting that most of the corruption in India was the work of the Scheduled Castes (SC), the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), I thought...

-The Indian Express With fresh evidence exposing the excessive tactics adopted by the local police in an incident earlier this month in the Maharashtrian town of Dhule, the state government needs to demonstrate its capacity to come to grips with the aftermath. On January 6, there occurred a spat over the settlement of a bill at a roadside eatery, which in no time took on the dimensions of a communal clash,...

-BiharDays.com If familiar with Indian politics and society, here is an IQ test for you. This is what Nandy said during a panel discussion as transcribed from a video clip doing the rounds in the media. Read it as carelessly as you wish and see if you can get the sarcasm. I bet you will, unless you are a towering intellectual or a star media analyst-panelist-commentator. Here it goes: ‘It is a fact...