-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...

-The Economic Times The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Constitutional validity does not mean sense - after all, being stupid is not illegal. Public opinion is most exercised about all schools, even those that get no aid from government, being asked to provide 25% of their seats free to poor students.  The court has pronounced this a blow for affirmative action. Private schools...

-The Economic Times   What's common between foggy movements of two army battalions, the government auditor's assessments of large notional losses to the exchequer and a letter from the army chief to the PM on his unit's preparedness for war?  The information in each of these instances in the past six months was marked 'secret' in official files, but screamed its way to the public, forcing the government into damage-control mode.  Information leaks in...

-The Hoot The West Bengal Chief Minister has made it clear that any public voice of dissent would be curbed by whatever means required. “If required, I will tell the people which newspapers to read in future”: this gem of an announcement was made by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in an interview given to selected news channels recently. Giving interviews to a chosen few, especially those who would not dare...

When universities start censoring speech and banning books, and permission is needed to hold conferences, we risk becoming a hollow, illiberal democracy. Do you need the administration's prior permission to hold a meeting, seminar, symposium or conference at a university? Most academics in liberal democracies would either be astounded by the question or feel compelled to answer it with an emphatic, if not vehement, no. The administration, they would argue, should...