Milan Vaishnav (Columbia): The Market for Criminality: Money, Muscle and Elections in India. Some relief at last for unwed tribal mothers: Sexual exploitation of tribal women continues to haunt Kerala long after literacy should have ended their misery. Eleven situations when rape is okay: Yamini Deenadayalan on bizarre justifications over the years. Falling Man: Manmohan Singh at the centre of the storm. From Outlook India, Pranay Sharma on our selective archive: Understanding why some events are kept alive in our collective consciousness and others interred; and when amnesia is a handy tool: David Ludden on why specific political projects need specific memories to generate national sentiment. Parul Sehgal reviews The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India by Siddhartha Deb (and more). It’s available, it’s not addictive, it’s dirt cheap — morphine is used globally to treat pain, so why do Indian doctors refuse to prescribe it, even in terminal cases, asks Rohini Mohan. Joseph Lelyveld’s new biography of Mahatma Gandhi caused a storm in India even before it was published there; Thomas Weber looks at the book and its critics. A massive biometric project gives millions of Indians an ID. The typewriter lives on in India: India's typewriter culture survives the age of computers in offices where bureaucracy demands typed forms and in rural areas where many homes don't have electricity. From The Caravan, a journey to unravel the truth of one woman’s courageous crossing reveals a social and family history of indentured labour migration from India to the Caribbean; and the firm that once colonised India is now owned by an Indian businessman — can Sanjiv Mehta turn history on its head—and make a tidy profit in the process?
