Opinions and Editorials

The proposed reforms in India's premier university, Delhi University, shed interesting light on the institutional challenges of reform in India and offer wider lessons.

It seems that the Monsoon Session of Parliament was over only yesterday, and already preparations for the Winter Session have begun.

There was something royal about Chief Minister Ashok Chavan's gesture to bestow Rs 5 lakh on the three villages in his constituency that gave him the maximum votes in the recent Maharashtra assembly elections.

No matter how Orientalist, condescending and opinionated Max Mueller sounds today, which Indian can resist savouring the German indologist's oft-cited statement of faith in India as the land where "the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them"? But where is the Indian who wou

Last week, Aaj Tak declared that God would descend to earth. Wrong: he is already in our midst. Short with bright eyes, curly hair, an ever-ready smile, he uses a bat to bless all comers. You know he is the chosen one because the normally reticent DD News described him as a "sensation" and Sharad Pawar compared him to Lord Krishna. That would be Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, the "God of cricket".

Manu Sharma's parole has, understandably, triggered great outrage. He was granted parole by the Delhi government, despite valid objections raised by Delhi Police. He had applied for three months' parole because he wanted to attend the religious rites of his grandmother, take care of his ailing mother and look after the family's business interests.

The Mandor Express mishap and other recent accidents have caused great concern about the safety of Indian Railways.

That there is already a controversy surrounding the Competition Commission, as reported by FE yesterday, isn't necessarily a bad thing—at least, after many years in the making, the Competition Commission is at last being noticed.

In May, when Mamata Banerjee took charge of the Union railways ministry in the West Bengal capital instead of at Rail Bhawan in Delhi, she cited a natural disaster—cyclone Aila—for breaking with precedence.

This study* sheds light on how a wide range of insurance and redistribution mechanisms operate at different points in the income distribution, and on how their respective roles have changed over the past 40 years.

Apropos the article 'AI to get equity infusion of rupees 2k crore' (FE, Nov 13), the proposed equity infusion by the Union government should be coupled with operational restructuring, staff rationalisation and introduction of a host of innovative measures to enhance revenue generation to stay afloat.

India's public-private partnership (PPP) programme in infrastructure has acquired substantial size over the last few years.

During his meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, US President Barack Obama will try to manoeuvre some wins off a reluctant China.

The Sebi Committee on Disclosures & Accounting Standards has recommended that the audited figures of the major heads of the balance sheet be disclosed by listed companies on a half-yearly basis.

The Samajwadi Party and Mulayam Singh Yadav are paying a price for their failure to evolve their politics and positioning.

Even as Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee enters his tenth year as chief minister of West Bengal, the CPM leader is confronted with a big question mark on his legitimacy in power.

There was a half-page advertisement celebrating Rahul Gandhi's success in UP (a specific reference to Firozabad, where Raj Babbar defeated Mulayam's daughter-in-law) about the "future" being "more than just about caste and community", and about "development and progress." There are no regulation stamp-size pictures of the Congress president or PM alongside Rahul's dimpled smile.

Professor Sheldon Pollock has just announced scholarships for Dalit students who wish to study Sanskrit at Columbia University.

On his way to Shanghai and Beijing this week, US President Barack Obama has declared that America has no desire to contain China and is ready to welcome its efforts to play a larger role in the world.

In a bit of uncharacteristic hyperbole on the eve of his 2005 meeting with President Bush, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared that the bilateral relationship was "without limits.