-The Hindu With 610 deaths in just two months, State records highest ever suicides by farmers. Mumbai: Suicides by farmers touched a grim high in 2015. The year that had recorded 2,590 suicides until October -- the higher ever since 2001 -- went on to register 610 more deaths in just the last two months. The death toll on December 31, 2015 stood at 3,228, indicating that the slew of measures the...

-The Hindu The public now sees the Internet not just in market terms, but as a social phenomenon that requires public interest regulation. In its aggressive campaign for Free Basics, couched in simplistic developmental language, Facebook underestimated the political sophistication of the Indian public. It must be regretting it now. The social networking service’s reportedly Rs. 100-crore campaign, through double full-page newspaper advertisements, billboards and television, appears simply to have congealed public...

Representatives of around 20 civil society organizations and NGOs met the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley as part of pre-budget consultation on social sector on 12 January, 2016. Immediately after the pre-budget consultation, a press conference was held by some of these organizations to convey the media persons what demands/ suggestions were made.   Subrat Das, Executive Director of Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA, http://www.cbgaindia.org/) informed us that during...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Social sector experts have sought wider coverage of social security benefits and increased allocation for the Right to Education, schemes for nutrition for children and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. “There is a deficit of 9 lakh teachers. We have demanded allocation of at least 10 per cent of the national income to education and implementation of the Right to Education by the...

-The Hindu Several instances of in-kind transfers being successfully implemented. Social sector groups want Finance Minister to review the implementation of alternative subsidy systems before going ahead with Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). “There have been several instances of in-kind transfers being successfully implemented in various parts of the country. Our appeal to the Finance Minister was to look at all the successful examples of alternative schemes before the government pushes ahead with the...