-The Hindu   Step paves way for providing quality and compulsory education to all children of school-going age The Tamil Nadu Elementary School Teachers' Federation (TNESTF) has thanked Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for notifying enforcement of the Right to Education Act, thereby paving way for providing quality and compulsory education for all children of school-going age. Federation General Secretary N. Rengarajan and president K.Kamaraj expressed happiness over the State being in the forefront to implement...

Plutarch's Life of Dion contains an interesting anecdote of Dionysius, an avowed and established tyrant, killing his captain, Marsyas. Marsyas had dreamt of cutting Dionysius's throat, and Dionysius killed Marsyas on account of his dream. He based his decision on the assumption that Marsyas would not have dreamt of such a thing by night if he had not thought of it by day. In his seminal work The Spirit of Laws...

Has India done a China to its trade partners? Against huge opposition and popular discontent over the years, the Cabinet last week cleared 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and allowed 100 per cent FDI in single-brand retail. The move appears crafty in that it tries to change the perception of a reform impasse in the government while simultaneously aiding India’s negotiators to meet their peers...

The 11th five-year plan promised the nation “inclusive growth”. It marked a departure from the earlier official position that the “benefits of growth” would automatically “trickle down” to the poor, and that if growth was not actually benefiting the poor, then the reason lay in its not being high enough. The 11th plan, by contrast, conceded that the “benefits of growth” did not automatically “trickle down”, but argued that growth...

-The Indian Express   After a week of parliamentary gridlock over retail reform, it appears as though both government and opposition are getting too used to this state of stalemate, the squandering of precious parliamentary time over one thing or the other. The constant adjournments, disruptions and boycotts over the last three sessions have, by now, seriously undermined Parliament — blocking important legislation, putting showy partisanship above the nation’s real needs. Is the...