Newsbook

Debate: Is India losing its way?
In response to a looming economic crisis, India’s government recently attempted a set of reforms that included cutting fuel subsidies. The ensuing storm was severe. Have India’s politicians set the country on a path of lower economic growth?

Re-election matters
To test the political truism that incumbents win with a strong economy and lose in tough times, The Economist has compared Barack Obama’s recent performance, in terms of growth and unemployment, against all post-war re-election bids

Doing business in Singapore
Our correspondent enthuses about a vibrant, cosmopolitan city-state whose remarkable efficiency makes it an easy place to do business.

A servant’s life in Mumbai
Domestic workers are an established feature of Indian life, but they are getting harder to find as more lucrative roles lure them away. One man takes us through his 11-hour day, as he juggles cooking, driving, butlering and laundry

Booth’s return to the summit
Our MBA ranking measures the things that students say are important—and the extent to which a programme opens new career opportunities comes first. In this regard, Chicago’s Booth School of Business, which tops the ranking once again, has few peers

Looking back to go forward
Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, talks to us about Europe.

Does size matter?
Our interactive map splits India by state (and union territory) to provide a clear impression of the breadth of the country’s internal differences, the immensity of the population, and the sheer inequality of the distribution of wealth

Caught in the middle
Halik Kochanski, author of a new book about Poland’s experience of the second world war, discusses the country’s traumatic entrapment between Nazi and Soviet oppression, and why it has remained hidden from mainstream historiography

The sins of the father
Park Geun-hye is doing well in the race for South Korea’s presidency.

IN THE dingy lobby of the Orontes Hotel in the southern Turkish town of Antakya, a 20-minute drive from the Syrian border, Syrian men—some smartly suited and booted, others bearded and in tracksuits—sit on ragged leather chairs around a low table, cigarettes smouldering in the ashtray. A defector from Homs shakes hands with a sheikh from the city. A fighter from the port of Latakia sidles up to a businessman sliding prayer beads the colours of the Syrian freedom flag between his fingers.

Here in the hotels and cafés of Antakya, once part of Syria, friendships are forged and rebel rivalries wrought that will affect the future of the war-ravaged country over the border.