-The Times of India The UPA-1's Rs 52,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme is turning out to be a big financial scandal. Out of 1 lakh farm loan waiver accounts audited in 700 bank branches across the country — involving disbursement of Rs 500 crore — about 30% of the waiver amount was allegedly found to have been siphoned off by a nexus of bank managers and microfinance institutions (MFIs). A comptroller...

-The Hindu Thanks to manufactured debates on TV, there is no time for irony and nuance nor are we able to distinguish between a charlatan and an academician Now that the Supreme Court has provided some sort of relief against harassment to Professor Ashis Nandy, it has become incumbent upon all liberal voices to ponder over the processes and arguments that combined to ensure that an eminent scholar had to slink out...

-ANI Srinagar : A day after the fatwa (decree) issued by Grand Mufti of Jammu and Kashmir, Bashiruddin Ahmad, against the girl-band, the associated with the rock-band have decided to call it quits. Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad on Sunday had issued a decree terming singing as ‘un-Islamic’ and ‘obscene’. The band named ‘Pragaash’ (morning light) comprises Huma, the lead vocalist and guitarist, Aneeka who plays base and Farah, who is the drummer. However, Jammu and...

-The Times of India GUWAHATI: Despite the state government stressing on economic development of rural areas and hailing its achievements on this front from time to time, over 500 cases of poverty-driven suicides were recorded in the state between 2009 and 2011. The records, compiled in the Statistical Year Book of India 2013 by the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation earlier in January, revealed that the state recorded a constant...

-The Indian Express On the Delhi rape case, let’s keep the indignation, disturb legislative slumbers The Verma Committee Report (VCR) speaks against civil society and political rape cultures. The poignancy and urgency of the VCR owes much to the experience of conversing with rape survivors and traumatised children. A precious message of the VCR is this: one may not take law reform seriously without taking human and social suffering equally seriously. The committee...