Welcome to The Examined Week,  a collection of reading matter published on the web in the past week*, published every Friday afternoon.

Dilip D’Souza writes:

In other words, what I hope this judgement sheds light on is the whole sickening culture of police “encounters”, and the widespread societal approval for them. Dreaded gangsters or not, the police cannot be allowed to shoot them down, and cannot be allowed to get away with shooting them down. But once we do allow them to do those things, we had better be prepared for murders like on that day in 1997: murders of perfectly ordinary folks like you and me.

Yes, it could have been you in that car that day. Because of Justice Kumar, there’s just that much less chance that it might be you, bullet-ridden dead in another car, tomorrow. Think of it like that.

The Economist calls for flexible labour laws in India:

This partly explains why most firms are so small: 87% of employment in Indian manufacturing is in firms with fewer than ten employees, compared with only 5% in China. Small firms cannot reap economies of scale or exploit the latest technology, and so suffer from lower productivity than big firms.

Andy Mukherjee writes on  the joke that the NREGS is. You have of course already read Amit Varma on the same subject.

Ajay Shah writes that it is not that the Rupee is appreciating, but that the dollar is depreciating –   an important distinction. He also abuses the RBI.

The mysterious and anonymous blogger Indian maverick analyses the failure of the nuclear deal.

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha writes  about Radiohead’s voluntary pricing model and what it means. On that note, check out the Marginal Revolution poll about what readers paid. It also turns out that more people pirate it than download it for free.

Tyler Cowen looks at a paper that investigates whether the caste system was economically efficient.

Sandeep surveys  Rama in Tamil tradition.

Megan McArdle, the smartest woman alive, writes about the theory and practice. She also has two posts [1], [2] on the implications of  the disappearing family.

Finally, the Jagadguru wishes constipation upon Rajinikanth:

Seriously, is Rajini asking K to talk to Rama and sort out the matter? Already this fool is dumbing the previously dumb Indians with his movies like Baba. Now this. It is high time this nutcase is ignored by the masses and shown his way out. He has messed up with the “illiterates” of Tamilnadu with Babas and Chandramukhis. It is time he shuts his butt out and stays away from anything other than his crap called acting.

*”Past week” will be defined as loosely as I please