If only we would pause and look beyond the horizon of day to day events, we would see a trend of great significance. More people on the earth have risen out of poverty in the past 25 years than at any other time in human history, and this has happened primarily because of sustained high economic growth in India and China. Unlike China which has embraced growth enthusiastically, India has a vast industry of ‘poverty-wallas’, who incessantly raise doubts if our growth is pro-poor.

Corporate Affairs minister, Salman Khurshid, created quite a stir recently when he warned companies to refrain from paying “vulgar salaries” or face the music. Mukesh Ambani took his advice and cut his salary by 65%. Flaunting wealth is distasteful; it is also imprudent when market capitalism is still trying to find a comfortable home in India. However, the minister was profoundly wrong. The trouble with judging other people’s lifestyle is that soon you are tempted to control other things, and this is a short step to the command economy. Not to live ostentatiously is a call of dharma, not a legal duty.

On the face of it, it's an absurd proposition: that the study of a lengthy Sanskrit text written thousands of years ago can shed light on the workings of today's competitive, capitalist economy. Yet that's exactly what Gurcharan Das sets out to do in his latest book, The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma. In it, the former chief executive of Procter & Gamble India and managing director of Procter & Gamble Worldwide (Strategic Planning) brings the ideas and moralities of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, into contemporary life.

The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan are meeting today in New York to carry forward the peace dialogue begun at Sharm-el-Sheikh. India’s decision to meet has been prompted by Pakistan’s arrest of Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks. Many Indians feel cynical, however, about today’s meeting, especially after the disappointment at Sharm-el-Sheikh. Negotiating with a nation whose secret service might be plotting the next terrorist attack on you seems bizarre, but is there an alternative to the slow, maddening grind towards peace with our neighbour?