It has been a slow but steady move to make scholarship freely available Most of us spend a few hundred rupees a year on the magazines we buy for leisure reading or for keeping abreast of current affairs. But if you are a scientist, you may be shelling out a few thousand rupees for the journal your professional society publishes for its members. Of course, if you are a serious researcher,...

-The Business Standard After food, education and information, pension is being sought as a fundamental right Old age should be cushioned with an assurance of minimum necessities in the form of pension. But, for a majority in India, there is either nothing or very little. Recently, Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said in Parliament that 83 per cent of the 55 million beneficiaries of the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) get a pension...

-The Economic Times The April 28, 2012, issue of The Economist has a story on India's solar power and mentions Charanka village in Patan district, Gujarat. Solar energy can be converted into electricity, using photovoltaics, or can be converted into heat. (There are other technologies too, but those aren't important yet.) So far, solar thermal, or heating, in India has essentially meant solar cookers and water heaters, though it needn't stay that...

After 12 days in Maoist captivity, Sukma collector Alex Paul Menon emerged from the forests around sunset on Thursday — accompanied by Maoist interlocutors BD Sharma and G Hargopal. Earlier, just a few days into Menon’s abduction, intelligence agencies had assured the government that things were not exactly following the abductors’ script. Adverse public opinion had forced even Maoist sympathisers to condemn the act. The interlocutors urged the Maoists to close...

-The Economic Times Objections by the Opposition and even treasury benches to the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill - which seeks to make divorce easier - has forced the government to review the legislation. The government appears set to accept the demand for a cooling off period before divorce. It will now be left to the discretion of the judge to determine the time between the petition and granting of divorce. The government...