V care Varsity

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Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), one of the few Indian institutions of higher education that have been resisting bureaucratisation, is about to give up. Its Academic Council recently approved the implementation of the University Grants Commission-dictated points-based system of evaluation for faculty recruitment and promotions. Why is the UGC imposing such a system on universities?

There is talk of reaping the demographic dividend of India's young population, given that t...

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An American-style culture war has broken out among British academics and opinion-makers over the underlying causes of the recent riots in London and other cities. While the political class, despite attempting to sound “different,” is broadly on the same sheet, the intellectuals are deeply divided with those on the Right suggesting that there was a racial dimension to Britain's worst street violence since the 1980s because most of the rioters came from a particular ethn...

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All provisions in Anna Hazare's Jan Lokpal Bill are within the legislative competence of Parliament, including the provisions relating to Lokayuktas in the States. Some confusion is being spread in the media that Parliament cannot enact all the provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill, particularly those relating to the Lokayuktas in the States, a law for which will have to be enacted by the State Legislatures themselves. Any constitutional jurist would confirm that there is no substance...

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The world's largest solar photovoltaic plant will start delivering up to 125 megawatt (MW) of clean, sustainable solar energy in Maharashtra in March 2012. Germany is proud to play a role in this important project by supporting the financial investment. Only recently, Germany's state-owned KfW Development Bank and India's Ministry of Finance signed a reduced-interest loan of €250 million for the construction of this solar plant at Shivajinagar, Sakri.

This is ...

Badly phrased and littered with misspellings, the e-mail that arrived in newsrooms on November 23, 2007 was typed in plain vanilla ‘Times New Roman,' bereft of the filmic Kalashnikov-and-Qur'an logo and lush graphic effects which would appear in its subsequent iterations.

Minutes later, three synchronised bombs went off outside courtrooms in Uttar Pradesh. The e-mail, journalists recall, went unread: there was too much work to be done.

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Minutes after a bomb ripped through the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, India's politicians began sounding like an old broken record: the terrorists were “dastardly”; the attack was “cowardly”; the perpetrators would receive a “resolute response.” Terrorists are unlikely to be cowed by this. The sad truth is that not one case of urban terrorism since 26/11 has been solved, and there's a mounting body of evidence that suggests the alleged perpetra...

One started reading the new Draft National Land Acquisition and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill 2011 with expectations of a great improvement over the 2007 Bills. There are indeed some very good features in the new Bill but, on the whole, one must regretfully report disappointment. Let us see how the Bill deals with some of the key issues involved.

(i) Acquisition of agricultural land: The Bill rules out the acquisition, not of all irrigated agricultural la...

Foreign policy has very few tongue-in-cheek moments. Yet, as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad called on the British government to show restraint while quelling its rioters, and suggested a full report on human rights violations in the United Kingdom, many Arab leaders found it hard to conceal a grin. Western (read American, British, French) interventions in West Asia this year have met with few success stories, and as the international community steps up the pressure on Syria...

It is well understood that a substantial proportion of the grain, mainly wheat and rice, that is meant to be distributed to eligible families under the Public Distribution System (PDS) ends up being sold in the open market by corrupt intermediaries, including some dealers who manage PDS outlets. The extent of this “diversion” of PDS grain has been a matter of speculation for some time. Two recent surveys shed further light on the matter.

The diversio...

The historic Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation India and the Soviet Union signed on August 9, 1971 sprang from a convergence of national interests and shared perceptions of security risks posed by the United States and Chinese role in the region. Forty years on, the same centres of power are at play in the region but security perceptions have changed, creating new challenges and opportunities for India and Russia, say Russian academics.

The 1971 treaty...

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The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, headed by C. Rangarajan, has several eminent economists as its members. Its reports on the economy — the Economic Outlook and the Review — are widely referred to, not the least, because they are much simpler to read and easier to understand than many comparable reports.

The Council's views carry plenty of weight although it is purely an advisory body. The most recent Economic Outlook 2011-12 is much more...

A bill to settle a terrible debt

Siddharth Varadarajan

For decades, the victims of communal and targeted violence have been denied protections of law that the rest of us take for granted. It's time to end this injustice.

In a vibrant and mature democracy, there would be no need to have special laws to prosecute the powerful or protect the weak. If a crime takes place, the law would simply take its course. In a country like ours, however, life is not so simple. Terrible cr...

How To Make Friends For Life ? Three Steps Towards Friendship

Globalization and India