-Deccan Herald Bengaluru: Residents of Seegehalli, located near Hopefarm Junction in Whitefield, are privileged to enjoy clean drinking water, good roads and an efficient waste management system - thanks to the efforts of the Seegehalli Gram Panchayat. In contrast to the roads falling under BBMP limits, the roads of Seegehalli, which is around five km from Whitefield, are good and motorists do not dread riding around, residents claim.   The panchayat has passed a...

-The Indian Express It can be strengthened —by the collection of taxes at the local level, for instance. Democratic decentralisation, conceived two decades ago, seems to be a lost cause at first sight. Beyond lip service by politicians, neither panchayats nor municipalities have captured the public imagination as viable, responsive, accountable institutions of government. Just after the Karnataka panchayat elections, which ended on June 2, the continued disempowerment of local governments is...

-The Indian Express It is easy to see why the Unique Identity (UID) project, also known as Aadhaar, has caught the imagination of many administrators, economists and policymakers. Identity verification is a routine problem in India and Aadhaar sounds like a foolproof solution. The idea is really smart and the technology is cutting-edge. After the initial hurdle of universal enrolment, numerous applications are possible: monitoring the attendance of government employees, linking...

-The Hindu Nine amendments have been adopted. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015, popularly known as the land bill, was adopted by the Lok Sabha after debating it for two days. Congress and Biju Janata Dal walked out ahead of the voting, to protest the removal of a clause that makes it mandatory to get farmers' consent prior to the acquisition of land...

-Business Standard Govt's revised method of calculating output and growth make recomparisons inevitable in earlier judgments At the outset, nobody would believe that India's economy expanded by double-digits only four years earlier and the growth rate in gross domestic product (GDP) dived to as little as below four per cent during the global financial crisis period of 2008-09. Yet, these would be the facts if one measures growth in terms of the...