-The Times of India The inflation rate slowed to a more than three-year low of 5.96% in March on the back of softening vegetable, fruits and milk prices, brightening the prospect of an interest rate cut by RBI while bringing relief for the politically beleaguered government. Lower interest rates would provide relief to thousands of borrowers reeling under the burden of high equated monthly installments ( EMIs) on their home loans. Data released...

-The Indian Express April 1 marked the third anniversary of the passage of the Right of Children for Free and Compulsory Education (RTE). There is little argument that the implementation of the RTE in these three years has been less than satisfactory. Deadlines for the enforcement of input norms - infrastructure, pupil-teacher ratios - have come and gone and potentially game-changing provisions, like 25 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections...

-The Hindu     Drug patents are designed to create profits that enable more research on diseases affecting millions. But in practice, they have often generated super profits for big pharma companies while erecting access barriers for the poor. The Novartis case spotlights much that is wrong with the system. The rejection of the Novartis petition challenging one of the most progressive tenets of the Indian Patents Act (1970), as amended in 2005 by...

-The Business Standard Ashok Gulati in a paper also gave measures to contain the inflation As India's food inflation continues to remain stubbornly high - it was in double digit for the third straight month in February 2013 at 11.38% - a discussion paper floated by eminent agriculture economist and chairman of Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) Ashok Gulati has blamed high fiscal deficit, rising farm wages and global food...

-The Indian Express No country has ever achieved prosperity without engaging with science and technology (S&T). The ascent of the West and its global domination owes much to its prowess in S&T. In Asia, Japan and South Korea and more recently China have taken the highway to prosperity by mastering technology and effectively dealing with complexity. Chinese economist Justin Yufi Lin in his book The Quest for Prosperity has argued that...