-The Economic Times   Bureaucracy bashing is India's favourite national vocation. And for good reason. Our bureaucracy has its good share of crooks, criminals and cheats who need to be put away - with or without a Lokpal. The simple counter-question is, does the bureaucracy have a disproportionately larger share of crooks than in other professions in India, and the data clearly does not say a resounding yes.  In fact, there is perhaps...

-The Indian Express   After a Delhi trial court summoned the executives of 21 companies, including Google and Facebook, the Delhi high court responded to their petitions by warning them to take down “objectionable” material, or risk being “blocked” altogether. In Justice Suresh Kait’s words: “You must have a stringent check. Otherwise, like China, we may pass orders banning all such websites.” The government, which was asked to indicate if it agreed...

Greedy lawyers and lack of awareness condemn women undertrials twice over Kanimozhis All?     Total number of male and female convicts in India: 1,23,941; Number of undertrials: 2,50,204     Number of female prisoners: 15,406; Female undertrials: 10,687     Female prisoners compromise 4.1 per cent of the prison population     469 women convicts with their 556 children and 1,196 undertrials with their 1,314 children are in prisons across the country     Official capacity of prisons in...

Salman Khurshid’s proposal to send law school graduates to remote districts for a year should also benefit those who need free legal aid THE UNION law ministry’s proposal to send students to practice for a year in far-flung districts of the country after finishing studies is an excellent idea — and long overdue. But it can be a progressive move only if it is thought through properly. Ways have to be...

Neglected by conventional banks, low-income women in Satara have set one up themselves. Not long after Chetna Gala Sinha came to the drought-stricken region of Mhaswad in western Maharashtra to marry a farmer and prominent local social activist, she began putting her university degree in finance into action. Local women, she observed, were wearing themselves out in subsistence livelihood such as growing grapes or selling vegetables. In 1992, Chetna, who grew up...