-Livemint.com Will a development record alone be enough to win elections? There is a popular saying in Bihar that people in the state do not cast their vote, but vote their caste. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s 15-year rule till 2005 was built on the Muslim-Yadav equation. The 2010 elections marked a break in this trend, according to many commentators. In a column after the 2010 Bihar elections, political scientist Milan Vaishnav attributed Nitish...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: About 526 cases of sexual harassment of women at workplace were reported during 2014, the government said on Friday. Of these, 57 cases were reported in office premises and 469 were registered at other places related to work, minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi said. She said the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 casts responsibility on the appropriate...

-Livemint.com A total of 158 farmers killed themselves in July in the state, bringing this year’s toll of farmer suicides to 197, the most since 2003 Bengaluru: The farmer suicide rate in Karnataka has hit the highest level in a decade, highlighting agrarian distress in the state. A total of 158 farmers killed themselves in July alone in the state, government data showed, bringing this year’s toll of farmer suicides to 197,...

-Brookings Institution India Center In  this  paper,  the author studies  the  data from  the  National  crime  Record  Bureau  (NCRB)  of  India  and disaggregate  across  demographic  and  leading  causes  of  suicides. The author finds  that  mental  and  physical health  are  the  leading  causes  of suicides  in  India  (20%)  while  the  often  cited  factor,  indebtedness, causes  significantly  lower  number  of suicides  (less  than  5%).  Among  the  different  demographic categories, housewives report the largest...

-The Telegraph   The debate around Yakub Memon’s hanging highlights the many cases of people who were hanged but who should have lived. Indeed, the Supreme Court admitted in 2009 that it had wrongly sentenced 15 people to death in 15 years. Avijit Chatterjee looks at some cases   It was a mistake, the Supreme Court later said. But by then it was too late. Ravji Rao, or Ram Chandra, had been hanged to...