Interesting readings

• Barbara Crossette on the country that is the biggest pain in Asia.
• India is mired in a difficult process of learning how to achieve a well functioning liberal democracy. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Amol Sharma and Jessica E. Vascellaro look at the problems with freedom of speech in India. And, writing in the Financial Times, John Elliott on India's silliness in giving out visas.
• New years day reading: the trio of C. Raja Mohan, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Bibek Debroy in the Indian Express;
  Sunil Jain in Business Standard;
  Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in the Economic Times.
• Jayanth Varma in Financial Express on India's exposure to capital flows.
• P. Vaidyanathan Iyer in the Indian Express on what to do with the Planning Commission.
• Dhiraj Nayyar in Indian Express on central bankers.
• On railway reforms: Dhiraj Nayyar in the Financial Express and Sarabjit Arjan Singh in the Indian Express.
• Ashok Desai in the Telegraph on India's place in the Indian ocean, and William H. Avery in Financial Express on what India should be doing in the next decade.
• Sharon LaFraniere in the New York Times, on Chinese scientists returning to China.
• Ravi Kanbur and Eswar Prasad on the monetary policy framework for emerging economies.
• Richard Martin in Wired magazine on thorium-fired nuclear plants. Also see the Energy from Thorium blog.
• Tarun Ramadorai in Financial Express on Dubai.
• John Lee on the generational change in China's leadership and on India.
• Martin Feldstein suggests you should not be investing in gold.
• Mark DeWeaver on the strange place called China, and Carol Mann on the strange place called Afghanistan.
• On the independence of American universities. Also see here. Could the International University of the People be useful for a few million people in India?
• Robert Shiller in the New York Times on the usefulness of local currency, GDP-linked securities issued by governments.
• DARPA is a model for how to put public money into research. In the New York Times, William Saletan reviews a new book on DARPA by Michael Belfiore.
• The rules of the game in hijacking have changed.