-The Hindu Effective spending, reworking the affiliation system and breaking academic bureaucracy are key to better universities Although Indian higher education suffers from many dysfunctionalities and the system overall is characterised by “pinnacles of excellence in a sea of mediocrity”, it does reasonably well by some international comparisons. Here are a few examples: — India is a global leader in terms of GDP spent by public and private sources on higher education. India...

-The Telegraph A baby girl in need of a brain scan has been turned away by every government hospital she has visited in six months because her unemployed single mother doesn't have a BPL card or the money for an MRI. Jhuma Majhi's daughter Brishti, a year and nine months old, was recommended an MRI of the brain last August after falling off a bed and suffering convulsions that have since become...

-The Times of India Applied for an Aadhaar card before April 1, 2012, but haven't got it yet? You may have to apply all over again. A lot of data related to applicants who enrolled for the Aadhaar unique identification number in the first phase has apparently been either lost or rendered unusable due to "encrypting errors". UID Authority of India on Monday told the Delhi government that applicants whose status on...

-The Economic Times Brands may be spending million to promote an eco-friendly-image, but when it comes to actual sales, organic and 'planet-friendly' products have failed to move cash registers for retailers, whether it's fresh produce, groceries or even clothing. Top food retailers like Future Group, Reliance Retail and Spencer's Retail say sales from organic vegetables, fruit and food products account for less than 2 per cent of total food sales, even three...

-Manorama Online In the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, four characters have differing recollections of the same event. Did the samurai stab himself with his wife's dagger? Which of them, if any, is telling the truth? I felt like this after the session at last month's Jaipur Literature Festival during which Ashis Nandy said, among other odd things, “It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the...