-The Economic Times A high-level panel set up after last month's gang-rape case in Delhi may have made headlines for not recommending the death penalty for rapists, but it is triggering concerns across India Inc for advocating far-reaching changes in rules that govern sexual harassment in corporate workplaces. The panel headed by former Supreme Court chief justice JSVerma, in its report submitted to the government, has said employers must not attempt conciliation...

-Tehelka Edited Excerpts From An Interview NOTED ECONOMIST and Columbia University Professor Jagdish Bhagwati’s pro-free trade stance is well-known. A friend of the prime minister and his batch mate from Cambridge University, Professor Bhagwati feels the UPA’s departure from the stagnation of the past few years is a welcome change, and lauds the decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail. In an interview to TEHELKA Business Editor Shaili Chopra, Bhagwati says more...

-The Guardian The global application of a fraudulent economic theory brought the west to its knees. Yet for those in power, it offers riches How they must bleed for us. In 2012, the world's 100 richest people became $241 billion richer. They are now worth $1.9 trillion: just a little less than the entire output of the United Kingdom. This is not the result of chance. The rise in the fortunes of the...

The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...

-The Hindu Refusal by Dalits to work as agricultural labour and to perform menial duties plus their relative economic improvement have made them the targets of caste violence In the recent violence against the Dalits in Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu, about 300 of their houses were burnt down and other properties destroyed by the Vanniars, a numerically strong intermediate caste, sections of whom have been economically stagnant. The immediate cause for...