Front Page

• Defamation should remain a penal offence: The Centre has told the Supreme Court that categorising defamation as a criminal offence is not an attack on free speech, and that it will no longer continue to act as a deterrent if categorised as a civil offence. (See the national news of July 9 for the original story).

• Pakistan sounds tentative on Lakhvi’s voice sample: The India-Pakistan joint statement released in Ufa speaks of finding a way to expedite the trial in the Mumbai terror attack case. India has been demanding (for five years) a voice sample of the main accused behind these attacks, which we want to match against the voice of the commanders directing the terrorists during the Mumbai attacks. It had been hoped that after the joint statement, Pakistan would hand over the sample. But Pakistan is interpreting the wording of the  joint statement differently than India, and could end up not giving the voice samples.

• Separatists now mend fences: After India and Pakistan appeared to come together at the SCO summit in Ufa, the separatist politicians of Jammu & Kashmir have also come together. (The Hurriyat Conference wants Kashmir to join Pakistan, and had divided in 2002 into the hard-liners led by Geelani and the moderates led by the Mirwaiz. The JKLF is led by Yasin Malik and wants Kashmir freed from both India and Pakistan and become a soverign country).

Opinion/Editorial

• Greece and its ‘Eurogeddon: A look at the history of the current economic crisis in Greece, and why it was more affected by the 2008 crisis than other nations not part of the Eurozone. Classic article.

• Integrating Tibet with the world: China stresses that its initiatives are a part of its plan to elevate the economies of its relatively backward western regions; that it would integrate Tibet with China’s transportation corridor to Europe.. But the Indian security establishment is focusing sharply on the project, because the railway from Lhasa to Nyngchi is in close proximity to the disputed areas of Arunachal Pradesh.

• News industry staring at existential questions: An article about how technology is changing the world of journalism and news reporting. About what has already happened in the US, and when we can expect the same in India. Must read.

• Why poverty is development’s best friend: A look into how far “development” has managed to reduce “poverty” in India, and why we focus on development through the lens of world economics after the US became the world’s dominant capitalist power (vis-a-vis the Marshall Plan and the Bretton Woods institutions).

National

• Revoke AFSPA in North-East: A day after the Union Home Minister talked about a possible scaling down of Central forces deployed in the North-East, Amnesty International said on Sunday that India must rethink on the use of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act  in the North-Eastern States.

Economy/Business

• China troubles are not good news for India: If Chinese markets keep going down, it does not mean investments will now start exiting China and start flowing into India. The positives for India will be outweighed by the negatives for India because of the interconnected nature of world trade.

• PF money & stock markets: We ordinarily assume that investment in equities is a done deal once the investment occurs. But care should be taken to educate the investor on the risks inherent in equity investment and in all cases, the subscriber should be given a choice.