-The Hindu The unorganised manufacturing sector should be reoriented towards non-household units to provide efficiency gains. Ever since E.F. Schumacher, a British economist, published in 1973 his book Small is Beautiful, implying that small units are better in terms of performance indicators and labour absorption, several studies have endorsed the same idea and argued in favour of promoting small units. Stretching the argument a little further, it may be emphasised that small...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Faculty and scholars from some of India's leading science and engineering institutions have published academic papers in so-called "predatory journals" - online publications that accept poor-quality papers without adequate peer review, an analysis has found. The finding reflects what some scientists say is a lack of institutional initiatives to curb poor-quality or junk research. The analysis of 3,300 academic papers from India in predatory journals has found that while...

-PTI ‘This exciting project will make South Asia’s rich and vibrant printed heritage accessible to everyone’ A new British Library project will digitise 4,000 early printed Bengali books, amounting to more than 800,000 pages, as part of the U.K. India Year of Culture plans for 2017. The digitisation project is part of a wider “Two Centuries of Indian Print” project, an international partnership led by the British Library with funding from the Newton...

-TheWire.in A report by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy found that on an average, a law took 261 days to come into force and 14% of laws took a whopping 1000 days to become implementable. The term ‘legal reform’ has caught the imagination of policymakers, the judiciary and the general public, taking everyone by storm. Suddenly, everybody is clamouring to usher in new laws and weed out redundant ones. The government...

-Frontline.in Interview with Utsa Patnaik, professor emerita of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. By T.K. RAJALAKSHMI THE FALLOUT of the decision of the National Democratic Alliance government to demonetise currency of higher denominations has been felt across all sections of people. There are concerns that it will lead to an overall economic slowdown given the acute shortage of currency for industrial and agricultural operations. The impact on agriculture and those dependent on agriculture...