Universities should not have to bow to research institutes, writes Debashis Gangopadhyay. Basic Sciences versus Applied Sciences Undermining humanities studies in schools will lead to a large number of science graduates in the market. This is a boon for multinational companies as profits will escalate — the cost of labour being lower. However, the danger to profits persist from another aspect. Students who study science out of their love for a subject are...

-The Hindu Love marriages, unescorted visits to the market and even the use of mobile phones — women up to the age of 40 in Uttar Pradesh’s Bagpat area can have none of these. The decision, which seems inspired by a Taliban-style diktat, has been taken by the panchayat in the Baraut tehsil of Bagpat, ostensibly to safeguard women from “teasing.” The panchayat issued a “farman” (diktat) barring women up to the...

-The Times of India Persons displaced by land acquisition would be paid an extra 12% of the cost of land every year, in what is seen as the government's bid to sweeten the deal after insisting on state's role in buying land for private parties.  The proposed changes to the Land Acquisition Bill add 12% of market value of the land acquired to the package of compensation and solatium to the evacuee....

-The Hindustan Times The Punjab government on Wednesday hammered out a compromise in a village between upper caste landlords and Dalit labourers who endured a month-long social boycott and loss of work for demanding “just” wages. But the truce — on paper — at Maha Singh Wala village in southern Punjab’s Sangrur district, 142 km from Chandigarh, appeared unsteady to Dalits as well as the landlords who had enforced the social...

-The Hindu Journalists need to adopt a set of integrity measures in order to police the boundaries between the market and political power   Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person and the world’s wealthiest woman, is seeking three board seats following her purchase of 18.7 per cent of Fairfax which owns most papers in Australia not controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd. There has already been considerable upheaval in two of the Fairfax papers...