High stock prices. It’s a chief reason voters gave for coming out again in favor of Shinzo Abe, who cinched another term as Japan’s prime minister on Sunday. Watching Japan’s stock market tick up to its highest level in two decades is a bit like watching the ‘likes’ accumulate from your so-called friends on a popular Facebook post. Affirmation tends ...

By nearly any measure, Facebook Inc. is an extraordinary success. Its market capitalization exceeds $500 billion. Its user base outnumbers all but one continent. Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive officer, is one of the world’s wealthiest people. No one should begrudge Facebook (or Zuckerberg) this success. Yet as it begins to play a more central role in American media and ...

For most Indians, the festival of Diwali is well worth the wait. Houses are brightly lit, boxes of sweets are exchanged—and accounts for the year are closed. The Hindu festival of lights also heralds the beginning of winter, the few months when the baked northern plains of the subcontinent become marginally more liveable. Except in India’s giant capital. Here in ...