Rampur-Mathura (Uttar Pradesh): It is not yet 5 p.m. but the light has started fading in Rampur-Mathura, a village of barely 5,000 people, in Sitapur district. A group of village elders settle down comfortably in wooden chairs around a small fire lit under a tree. It is here that they gather every evening to discuss the day's events before retiring for the night. Until now, the village's busybodies used to keep...

CAMBRIDGE (Massachusetts): Economist Paul A. Samuelson, a Nobel laureate and winner of the National Medal of Science, has died. He was 94. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Mr. Samuelson taught, said he died on Sunday at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts. Mr. Samuelson was one of the leading economists of the 20th century and served as an adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He won...

The Supreme Court today asked the central government to explain why lotteries shouldn’t be banned to save the poor from frittering away their meagre earnings in the hope of hitting the jackpot. The notice came a little over a week after another bench of the court asked Bengal to restrict draws of a lottery to once a week as mandated under a central law instead of one every five minutes. “Why should...

CITIES MAKE one simple promise to newcomers: Sacrifice yourself to me and your children shall prosper. This promise drew Ahmed Raza, a small-time wrestler from an Uttar Pradesh village and millions like him to the capital of newly-independent India. Raza kept his part of the bargain, yet half a century later, his daughter was pushed out of the city her father helped build, the only home she has known. “I...

There is a new excitement in the air concerning higher education. It has been decided by the powers that be, warmly supported by the academic community, that turning selected colleges into universities will open the gates to a Valhalla of knowledge. A commission entrusted with the qualitative improvement of higher education has recommended that on top of some 350 universities and/or equivalent institutions, another 1,500 will be created by upgrading...