-The Telegraph The government today set up an expert committee to suggest a new methodology for determining who is poor and who is not, following widespread condemnation of its existing criteria last year. However, the five-member committee headed by C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, will also examine the existing methodology, which was suggested by a previous expert panel formed under Suresh Tendulkar. Tendulkar’s methodology was solely based on...

-The Economic Times   The Centre's interlocutors panel on Jammu and Kashmir has recommended setting up of a constitutional committee to review all central Acts and Articles of the Constitution extended to Jammu and Kashmir. The purpose is to determine how the application of these laws has dented the special status of J&K and curtailed the state government's powers to cater to welfare of its people.  The report of the interlocutors - Dileep...

In a Bangladeshi folk story, a disabled grandfather is carried by his son in a basket, to be abandoned in the forest. On seeing this, the grandson calls out, 'Father, please be sure to bring back the basket. I will need it when you grow old'. Three thousand ageing men and women gathered in Delhi in the blazing midsummer heat to demand a universal pension for all aged people, not...

-The Telegraph A survey has identified 1,132 children in the age-group of 6 to 14 from eight districts as victims of seasonal migration who ended up working under woeful conditions in brick kilns outside Jharkhand. The study, conducted by city-based NGO Association for Social and Human Awareness (ASHA) and Tomorrow’s Foundation, Calcutta, covered 50 villages in Gumla, Lohardaga, Latehar, Ranchi, Khunti, East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan. A glaring fact that emerged was...

It was entirely correct for the Lok Sabha to have intervened in the textbook row as it represents the people, and their right to an egalitarian society, better than any group of “experts” Too many red herrings have entered into the debate over the removal of the cartoon from the class XI Political Science textbook of the NCERT. Let us, to start with, get these out of the way. First, the...