After 244 years, Encyclopaedia Britannica ends print run; Modernity on rampage; India has phones, lacks in toilets; End of Jap illusions

1 After 244 years, Stop Press for Encyclopaedia Britannica (San Francisco Chronicle) Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. said Tuesday that it will stop publishing print editions of its flagship encyclopedia for the first time since the sets were originally published more than 200 years ago. The book-form of Encyclopaedia Britannica has been in print since it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768. It will stop being available when the current stock runs out, the company said. The Chicago-based company will continue to offer digital versions of the encyclopedia.

Officials said the end of the printed, 32-volume set has been foreseen for some time. "This has nothing to do with Wikipedia or Google," Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. President Jorge Cauz said. "This has to do with the fact that now Britannica sells its digital products to a large number of people." The top year for the printed encyclopedia was 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold, Cauz said. That number fell to 40,000 just six years later in 1996, he said. The company started exploring digital publishing the 1970s. The first CD-ROM version was published in 1989 and a version went online in 1994. The final hardcover encyclopedia set is available for sale at Britannica's website for $1,395.

2 Modernity on the rampage (Ashoak Upadhyay in Business Line) Bengaluru's modernity is as mindless as Pune's. The main shopping location in both cantonments share not just the name, MG Road, but a depressingly similar transformation to a hand-me-down modernity served up by commercial greed, unblessed by aesthetic urban planning. Single brand retail outlets advertising designer “wear”, mobiles and footwear flank a street expanded to serve the manic rush of modernisation's most iconic and desecrating symbols.

Similarities abound. The cities' modernising sprawl ravishes nature's bounties: rivers and waterways that drain off excess rainwater, water bodies that feed a growing population and tree cover. Bengaluru has been systematically felling trees and filling the city's famed man-made lakes and wetlands, both of which fed the Garden city with the lush cover that earned it that sobriquet. The number of wetlands fell from 379 in 1973 to 246 in 1996, then plummeted to 81 by 2007. Modernisation's calamities in both cities have drawn citizen's groups into attempts to save the environment.

3 Citigroup among large banks to fail stress test (Straits Times) Citigroup was one of four large US banks that flunked stress tests aimed at seeing how they would hold up in a new economic crisis, Federal Reserve data showed. Three others - Ally, Suntrust and MetLife - also failed the tests, while 15 other large bank holding companies passed the exercise, the Fed said.

4 Nasdaq’s best in 12 years (The New York Times) Stocks rose to new heights on Tuesday, in part on stronger retail sales data, pushing the broad market to levels last seen in June 2008 and the Nasdaq composite index to close above 3,000 for the first time since 2000. On its joy ride heading into 2000, the technology-heavy Nasdaq reached its pinnacle of 5,048.62 on March 10 that year. Then the Internet bubble burst and the index plummeted nearly 40%, dropping below 3,000 that December in its worst annual loss. Though it had been flirting with closing above 3,000 in recent weeks, it easily cleared the mark on Tuesday, closing up 56.22 points, or 1.88%, at 3,039.88. The index is now up nearly 17% this year, more than the other two main Wall Street gauges.

5 The Millennials check in (The New York Times) The hotel industry, struggling to recover from the depths of the recession, has begun to contemplate a group of travelers it sees as crucial to its economic growth — those in their 20s to mid-30s who are obsessed with technology, social media and design. “All of the major brands — Hilton, Starwood, Marriott, InterContinental — have developed hip products that are targeted at the younger traveler,” said Chris Klauda, a vice president at DK Shifflet & Associates, a travel and hospitality market research company. Hotels that ignore these younger travelers, said Mark Woodworth, president of Colliers PKF Hospitality Research, will be at “a very severe competitive disadvantage.” About a decade ago, the hotel industry was concentrating much of its effort on luring people who are now mostly in their 50s and 60s. Today, the focus is on the Millennials, or Generation Y.

6 India is phone-enabled, but without toilets (BBC) Nearly half of India's 1.2bn people do not have toilets at home, but more people own a mobile phone, according to the latest census data. Only 46.9% of the 246.6 million households have lavatories while 49.8% defecate in the open. The remaining 3.2% use public toilets. Census 2011 data on houses, household amenities and assets reveals that 63.2% homes have a telephone.

Analysts say the data shows the complex contradictions of the Indian system. They say it reveals a country where millions have access to cutting-edge technology and consumer goods but a larger number of poor who lack access to even basic facilities. "Open defecation continues to be a big concern for the country as almost half of the population do it," Registrar General and Census Commissioner C Chandramouli said on Tuesday while releasing the latest data.

The data also reveals that Indian now largely live in nuclear families with 70% of homes consisting only one couple - a dramatic change in a country where joint families were always the norm. More than half the population - 53.2% - have a mobile phone. There has been a 16% rise in the number of homes with television sets, while the use of radios has declined by 15%. And the reach of computers with internet facility is still miniscule with only 3.1% of the population connected.

7 Seven reasons why India won’t be a superpower (BBC) India will not become a superpower, says Ramachandra Guha, renowned historian and author. He outlines seven reasons to support his thesis. The challenges which will hold India back, he writes, are the Maoist insurgency, the "insidious presence" of the Hindu right wing, degradation of the "once liberal and upright" centre, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, trivialisation of media, the sustainability of "present patterns of resource consumption" and the instability and policy incoherence caused by multi-party governments.

More importantly, Mr Guha believes that India should not even attempt to become a superpower. "In my view, international relations cannot be made analogous to a competitive examination. The question is not who comes first or second or third, whether judged in terms of Gross National Product, number of billionaires in the Forbes or Fortune lists, number of Olympic gold medals won, size of largest aircraft carrier operated, or power of most deadly nuclear weapon owned," he writes.

"We should judge ourselves not against the achievements, real or imagined, of other countries, but in the light of our own norms and ideals. We are a unique nation, unique for refusing to reduce Indian-ness to a single language, religion, or ideology, unique in affirming and celebrating the staggering diversity found within our borders (and beyond them)." In fact, as Mr Guha's teacher, the late historian Dharma Kumar, once said, Indians should applaud the lack of homogeneity.

8 Woman driver is nation’s toast (BBC) An 80-year-old South African motorist has been praised as a "sterling example" in a country with one of the world's worst road safety records. Hazel Souma, from Cape Town, got her driver's license 62 years ago - and has not received a single traffic fine. Handing her a certificate, Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele called for stricter punishments for people committing traffic offences. More than 40 people are killed on South Africa's roads every day. Ms Souma put her spotless record down to being a cautious driver and making every effort to obey the rules of the road. Over the past five days, more than 36 people have died in separate road crashes across the country. This week, a motorcyclist was caught driving at 220km/h (135mph) in a 120km zone.

9 Gautemalan given 6,060 years in jail (BBC) A court in Guatemala has sentenced a former soldier to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the massacre of 201 people during the civil war. Pedro Pimentel Rios, 55, was extradited from the US last year. The sentence is largely symbolic as the maximum actual term is 50 years but it comes amid renewed moves to try those implicated in civil war atrocities.

The massacre at Dos Erres was one of the most violent episodes in Guatemala's brutal 36-year civil conflict. A special unit of the Guatemalan army known as the Kaibiles stormed the village where they suspected residents were supporting or sheltering left-wing guerrillas. Over three days, the soldiers systematically killed hundreds of men, women and children, shooting or bludgeoning them to death and throwing bodies down a well. Pimentel had lived in California for many years before being arrested in 2010, and extradited to Guatemala the following year. He denied any involvement in the massacre.

10 End of Jap illusions (Khaleej Times) March 11, 2011, was a transformational moment for the Japanese people. It not only shattered the public myth of absolute safety that had been nurtured by the Japanese nuclear-power industry and its proponents. It also destroyed Japan’s self-image as a ‘safe and secure nation’ that grew out of the country’s pacifism since World War II.

The moment the disaster struck signalled the end of Japan’s long, long post-war period. In the early hours of March 15, Prime Minister Naoto Kan stormed the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power with an impassioned order that the company not abandon operations at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. He entreated civilian workers at the plant, run by Tepco, to put their lives on the line, insisting that Japan’s ‘’viability as a nation’’ was at stake. It was a message, delivered perhaps unwittingly, that Kan’s predecessors had never ventured to give: Be prepared to die for your country.

11 Punjab assembly is millionaires’ club (The Wall Street Journal) India’s northern state of Punjab may be reeling under a multi-billion dollar debt crisis but that hasn’t eroded the personal wealth of its policy makers. Instead, their net worth has multiplied over the last five years, making the state’s newly-elected member assembly one of the richest in the country. According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a New Delhi-based think tank, 101 of the state’s 117 newly-elected legislators are “crorepatis” or have wealth of 10 million rupees (approximately $200,000) or more. The report analyzed affidavits filed by candidates. In 2007, only 77 policy makers were crorepatis.

Of 46 elected legislators from the Congress party, the state’s leading opposition, 41, or 89%, are crorepatis. The state’s ruling Shiromani Akali Dal is second, on a percentage basis, with 47, or 84%, of its 57 elected legislators listed as crorepatis. What led to this manifold increase in wealth? Real estate, local industries and ancestral property, claim state politicians. Congress politician Karan Kaur Brar, who recently won election from the Mukstar constituency, is the state’s richest legislator with assets worth 1.28 billion rupees, or approximately $25 million.

12 India cos’ SOS for loan recast (The Economic Times) Companies in distress are rushing to restructure loans before the close of the fiscal to ensure working capital flows next year, and help banks dress up financial ratios when they present annual earnings in a year that will set a record for restructured loans since they were introduced in 2001. The Corporate Debt Restructuring Cell, a group comprising representatives from banks, will in the next two weeks take up as many as 20 cases to approve easier principal and interest repayment schedule after near-defaults, said a person familiar with the plan.

Total loan restructuring is expected to rise to Rs 1.5 trillion by March-end, from Rs 1.1 trillion at the end of March 2011, and Rs 865 billion in FY2009, data collated by ET shows. The number for this year does not include loans of real estate companies that are being restructured at the bank level, and those of state-run Air India that is done with the government's blessings. Private sector rival Kingfisher Airlines is attempting one.