-The Telegraph It is the time for West Bengal to create landmarks. First, the denial of a rape; second, the arrest of an academic for circulating a cartoon; third, a public circus with the winners of the Indian Premier League; fourth, the mimicry of the prime minister on television; fifth, the announcement of sop after sop even though the state is bankrupt; sixth, the announcement in the hills of being “rough...

The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution, the 73rd amendment and the landmark PESA and Forest Rights Act (FRA) have progressively acknowledged the rights, and special powers of the Gram Sabha in deciding developmental projects as well as playing a role in protecting the ecology and forests. But a clutch of clever exemptions in recent months are ensuring that centralised authorities take away the same powers through the back door, without routing...

-The Telegraph Jaipur: In this e-age, the pen can still be a potent weapon. The good old writing instrument, mightier than a sword in the hands of the right user, found a band of little champions who recently used it to telling effect. They got education authorities in Rajasthan to appoint a teacher for their school. They didn’t write emails, though laptops are being given to meritorious students to become e-savvy. They just...

-The Telegraph Even reformed capitalism cannot give equal opportunity There is a view that the real problem with capitalism is that there is no equality of opportunity under this system. Your entire life gets determined by which class you happen to get born into. If the effect of this ‘happenstance’ could somehow be eliminated, so that everyone enjoyed equality of opportunity, then even though income and wealth inequalities continued to remain...

-The Hindu Effective spending, reworking the affiliation system and breaking academic bureaucracy are key to better universities Although Indian higher education suffers from many dysfunctionalities and the system overall is characterised by “pinnacles of excellence in a sea of mediocrity”, it does reasonably well by some international comparisons. Here are a few examples: — India is a global leader in terms of GDP spent by public and private sources on higher education. India...