-IANS Those who cherish India's constitutional values will find Gujarat Chief Minister Narenda Modi's boast to build a state of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (India's first home minister and deputy prime minister) taller than the Statue of Liberty rather chilling. By prizing nationalism over individual freedom, Modi may have once again revealed his illiberal nature. People who dislike this aspect of him, Leftists mainly, give vent to their disapproval by dismissing Modi's development...

-The Hindu As India's parliamentarians continue to disrupt Parliament or the so-called "Temple of Democracy", the much anticipated National Food Security Bill (NFSB) has been put on the back burner. Consequently, millions of Indian will continue to sleep on empty stomach, tossing and turning all night dreaming for the day when eating food will not be a luxury anymore. Ironically, India presents a unique case of a country that, on the...

-The Hindu Kitne hi raaste hain mere dil mein jo Poonch ko jaate hai Mein jidhar se chalta hun Poonch pohonch jaata hun. Engraved on a granite plate under the bust of noted Urdu writer Krishan Chander at a public garden in Jammu & Kashmir's Poonch, these intense lines reflect the writer's love for this beautiful border district. But even as he penned these lines, little could he have known that the inspiring...

-The Hindu     In spite of the rosy picture painted by the World Bank, the prospect of eliminating extreme poverty remains distant In a protracted period of gloom and persistent recession with feeble signs of recovery in a large part of the developed world, the World Bank, Brookings Institution and others can be forgiven for their euphoria over the accomplishment of a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG) - of halving extreme poverty in...

-The Hindu Developing and emerging economies may not exactly be dazzling in the current overall grim global economic climate of joblessness and sluggish growth. But the region has registered rising employment and narrowing income inequalities, relative to their rich counterparts, since the 2007-08 meltdown, says the International Labour Organisation's World of Work Report 2013. The backbone of this promising story are the middle income groups in these countries, which have...