-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 With a single stroke, the government has made over 3.5 crore existing post office accounts ready for its new Aadhaar-linked cash transfer scheme. The accounts, which belong to MGNREGA workers over the country, were originally to be used only for receiving wages under the rural employment guarantee scheme. However, the government has now woken up to the potential of using the ready-made network of accounts to directly transfer benefits such...

-The Hindu Indian and Chinese officials plan to train together and exchange best practices on reforms Two of the world’s biggest bureaucracies — India and China — have begun an effort to share their experiences of carrying out administrative reforms and to jointly train their civil servants, following talks between the two governments here this week. In an effort to share “best practices” — more sensitive issues such as the rampant corruption...

-The Hindu Farmers are opting for the real estate option due to poor agricultural conditions Pushed by unsettling agricultural conditions and pulled by lucrative real estate deals, farmers across the famed and fertile Cauvery delta in Tamil Nadu are selling their lands to real estate developers. In Amma Chatram, Marudhanallur, Tirunageswarm, Mathur, and in a host of other villages in Thanjavur and adjacent districts, farmlands are being converted to residential plots at...

-Kafila.org The village of Majure, in Chitradurga district, Karnataka, is once again in the news. It made the national headlines in 1998 when dalits in the village lodged a police complaint against members of the dominant Vokkaliga and Lingayat castes for an attack on their hamlet. As a consequence, several people were put behind bars. This time round, however, no formal complaint was lodged. Not that things have improved (rather, one could...