-Livemint.com In the debate about Muslims and the uniform civil code, the idea of female choice is not considered, says Aakar Patel The upper-caste Gujarati version of bigamy is called maitri karar, meaning friendship document. Saying that people in Ahmedabad were “opting for it”, a 2013 report in India Today described it thus: “The document is in fact little more than a promise of friendship and companionship between a man and...

-AFP Global online freedom declined for a fifth year as govts stepped up electronic surveillance and clamped down on dissidents using blogs or social Media Washington: Global online freedom declined for the fifth straight year as governments around the world expand censorship and surveillance of the Internet, according to a group that tracks democracy and human rights. Nearly half of the 65 countries examined have seen online freedom weaken since June...

-Livemint.com Nobel to Deaton calls for a celebration of not just his own work but also the contributions of a number of Indian economists who have engaged with similar issues The announcement of Angus Deaton winning the Nobel Prize in economics was unexpected but not surprising. His body of work over the years has influenced many of us who have worked on issues of poverty, nutrition and food security. It is...

-The Hindu Business Line Government surveys on out-of-school children are gross underestimations. The Census numbers, however, are a shocker Census 2011 showed that about 32 million children aged between 6 and 13 years have never attended any educational institution, even though government estimates of out-of-school children show substantially lower numbers. Given that out-of-school numbers consist of both children who dropped out and those who never attended school, it raises some questions over...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: At a time when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is on a visit to India, the government's contract with his company is under intense legal scrutiny. For the first time, following court instructions, the Centre has filed in the Delhi high court a copy of the contract with Facebook that allows the latter to operate in the country. In an affidavit, the Centre has annexed the contract...