-Frontine Walmart’s disclosure that it spent huge amounts of money on lobbying in India and the allegation that it entered the retail sector through indirect means highlight the power of global capital in dictating the country’s policies. The world’s largest multi-brand retailer Walmart’s disclosure to the United States Senate that it had spent $25 million (Rs.135 crore) since 2008 on its various lobbying activities, which include enhancing access to the Indian...

-The Hindustan Times A pack of stray dogs killed all 31 blackbucks — five males and 26 females — in Kanpur zoo in a feeding frenzy that was detected in the early hours of Sunday. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav suspended the zoo director, K Pravir Rao, and five others for laxity which allowed the dogs to sneak into the enclosure of the blackbucks, an antelope species, late on Saturday night. Blackbucks...

-Bloomberg.com One of the most obscene moments after the death of the gang-rape victim in New Delhi was a tweet by Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, offering regret and condolences to the dead woman’s family. Modi, who has quelled restive minorities by allowing attackers to subject women to unspeakable horrors, has done more than any man to numb his prudish country to sexual violence. Yet he...

-The Hindu Suha came to Delhi as an 18-year-old nanny-cum-domestic help to a middle class household in Janakpuri. The going seemed fine enough -- her employers paid her full wages, did not force her to do overtime and even gave her an occasional holiday. The dream run got murky with the neighbour’s 20-something-year-old son “discovering” Suha. He would use every opportunity to harass and molest the young girl. One dreadful day...

-Deccan Chronicle The Annual Status of Education Report 2012 has revealed the standard of school education is not up to the mark in rural India, and claimed over half the children in these areas were at least three grade levels behind in reading and arithmetic abilities.   The report, prepared by Unicef backed NGO Pratham, claimed of all Class V students only 46.8 per cent could read a Class II text. Though 2012...