Professor Arjun Appadurai is a Mumbaikar at heart; coming to the city is an annual pilgrimage for this internationa­lly renowned cultural theorist and anthropologist. Appadurai, 62, who studied in Mumbai’s Elphinstone College, is currently Goddard Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He has been consultant and advisor to a wide range of public and private foundations such as The Smithsonian. In his seminal work Disjuncture and...

You know your negotiating strategy is in trouble when countries ranging as far as Norway in the developed world to partners like South Africa and neighbours like Bangladesh start quoting Gandhi and Nehru back to you. Two months ago, this was the unfortunate situation Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan had to face at the Durban conference on climate change. That she managed, through a passionate last-minute speech, to ensure that all was...

-PTI The anti-nuclear forum spearheading the stir against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project today demanded removal of former Atomic Energy Commission chief M R Srinivasan from the state expert panel to allay people's safety concerns, calling him "pro-nuclear".  People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy said it welcomed constitution of the four-member state panel but pointed out that Srinivasan was a "well-known pro-nuclear person."  Srinivasan was the former Chairman and a current member of India's Atomic...

Foreign companies affected by 2G verdict can invoke investment treaties The cancellation of the Unified Access Service Licence with 2G spectrum to telecom companies by the Supreme Court is celebrated as a triumph of the rule of law over jobbery and nepotism. Amidst this celebration, it is pertinent to understand the ramifications of the ruling. Since it affects foreign companies like Telenor of Norway, Sistema of Russia, and Etisalat of the...

It is getting harder for jobseekers to return to gainful employment and for new entrants to find adequate jobs, says the ILO. THERE is little in the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) annual projection of job growth to cheer about. The year 2012 has been described as a year of stark reality. A third of the global workforce is currently unemployed or poor; that is, 200 million members of the 3.3-billion-strong global...