-Economic and Political Weekly The vigorous public discourse following the recent brutal gang rape and mutilation of the 23-year-old in Delhi is a positive sign but hopefully the demand for quick solutions will not ignore the complexities involved in dealing with all forms of violence against women. There are also other connected issues that require urgent attention including the description of a rape as a "state worse than death", making out...

The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...

-Pratirodh.com If Year 2012 earned the sobriquet of “Year of Scams’ due to serial expose of “super social cop” Arvind Kejeriwal, and the year-end tragic death of girl in Delhi gang rape case reminded us about the most ugly manifestation of ‘Republic of Patriarchy’ in India, Year 2013 promises to be a game changer for the fortunes of welfare state in India as well as political fortunes of UPA-2.   If Narendra Modi,...

-Outlook The Supreme Court today asked the Centre why MPs and MLAs should be treated as "special class" in having different laws where persons with criminal antecedents are allowed to continue despite their convictions. "Why they be treated as special class? Why should there be different laws for them? Can Parliament make one law for its own members and other law for ordinary citizens?," a bench of justices A K Patnaik and...

-Outlook Inadequate infrastructure and lack of facilities at AIIMS today came under scanner of a Parliamentary panel which slammed the government for its "failure" to even provide for a state-of-the-art ambulance to transport the Delhi gang-rape victim to the airport recently. Sources said members of the Parliamentary Committee on Health, in its meeting here, lamented that the government had to borrow an ambulance from a private hospital to transport the girl to...