-The Telegraph Even as it is busy trying to resolve other people's conflicts in so many parts of the world, the United Nations has recently created a conflict of its own. It began innocuously enough. The organization has always tried to get consensus around matters on which it is often very difficult to arrive at such consensus. The usual strategy to achieve this is to sufficiently water down the language in its...

-The Guardian GDP may be an inaccurate indicator in sub-Saharan Africa, which is a concern for those who want to use statistics to help the world's poorest people Even in good financial times, development aid budgets are hardly overflowing. Government leaders and donors must make hard decisions about where to focus their limited resources. How do you decide which countries should get low-cost loans or cheaper vaccines, and which can afford to...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: Only three institutes in the country, all of them Indian Institutes of Technology, feature among the top 100 universities in Asia, according to the first Asia University Rankings released by "Times Higher Education" magazine. While IIT-Kharagpur is ranked 30th, IIT-Bombay is 33rd and IIT-Roorkee 56th, the University of Tokyo secured the pole position with an overall score of 78.3, followed by the National University of Singapore...

-The Indian Express After QS and Times Higher Education published their rankings of universities across the world, higher education has become the subject of fierce debate in India. The highest ranking institutions from India are the IITs, but even these do not figure in the top 200. The general refrain — why does no Indian university find a place among the top global universities? Unfortunately, given our present policies on higher education...

Most developing countries have a love hate relationship to foreign investment. They love the jobs that it creates, the technology that it accompanies, the additional choices that it provides, and the local millionaires/billionaires it creates through creative phased restrictions. On the other hand, since many developing countries have a colonial heritage, and cash is concentrated amongst developed world MNCs, the host are wary of it. The more nationalistic elements within a country...