The real challenge for the Indian news media now is to find economically sustainable and politically astute ways and means to loosen and eventually to break the stranglehold being established by big business to the detriment of free and independent journalism in a seemingly irreversible historical process, N. Ram, Chairman of Kasturi and Sons Limited and former Editor in Chief of The Hindu group of publications, said on Tuesday.

A U.S.-backed resolution at the United Nations that seeks justice for victims of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war has been softened to keep its government on board and allay the concerns of powerful neighbor India, sources say.

The draft resolution on Sri Lanka tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) by the U.S. and other countries has addressed the main issues of accountability and reconciliation, according to the Tamil National Alliance leader, R. Sampanthan.

Sri Lanka has a reputation for being a trailblazer when it comes to women and human development. At the primary education level, almost all girls and boys are enrolled in school, and in secondary school more girls are enrolled than boys—and have been for several decades. Girls now also outnumber boys in tertiary education. These achievements have a long history, with roots in the colonial period, when the establishment of single-sex missionary schools promoted education for females, though admittedly only among the elite classes. Some writers attribute the spectacular increase in female literacy from 42 percent in 1946 (compared to 70 percent male literacy in the same year) to its present day level (92 percent in 2013, according to the Department of Census and Statistics, 2014) to the widespread educational reforms of the 1940s that extended access to education to the masses, through the state provision of free education in the vernacular language, which they argue eventually led to the acceptance of the educated female as the norm.

Sri Lankan shares ended Tuesday slightly firmer from the previous session's 11-week low, snapping a losing streak over three straight sessions, helped by foreign buying of blue chips.