-Livemint.com Economist Esther Duflo on demonetisation impact, role of randomized control trials in policymaking, low priority assigned to health and education in India New Delhi: India’s demonetisation of high-value currency notes is a dramatic example of a policy announcement made without any serious thought given to implementation, said Esther Duflo, one of the leading development economists of the world and a professor at the department of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of...

-The Indian Express It distracts our Attention from vital questions of institutional health and economic governance. During the second half of UPA 2, the press, with some justification, created a frenzy of anxiety over India’s future, especially its economic future. After two and a half years of the Narendra Modi government, if the same standards of concern about India’s future were brought to bear on the present government, what would the heightened...

-TheHoot.org What are the factors that decide whether and where tribal language publications flourish? Some of the answers are surprising. Tribal languages have received insufficient Attention in our country. Only a small number of them have managed to register their presence in the world of print media. This article analyses registered tribal language newspapers and examines the conditions that support the growth of tribal languages in print media. Key findings are: *...

-TheThirdPole.net Anupam Mishra, who spent three decades fighting for rejuvenation of India’s traditional water harvesting systems, died on December 19 If many of India’s ponds, wells, stepwells, springs, check dams and other traditional water harvesting systems are still in working order today, if at least a few of India’s rivers have been revived, much of the credit must go to Anupam Mishra. Through reportage, analysis and advocacy sustained over three decades, this...

-The News Minute Rice Diversity Blocks in Kerala and five other states preserve over 1,000 indigenous varieties of rice that were at risk of being lost. In the Indian subcontinent, the birthplace of paddy, the colours of the crop’s many varieties are as diverse as the land, its people, languages, cultures, costumes, dialects and so on. But most of that variety was lost, when farmers were asked to forgo indigenous varieties...