-The Indian Express   India's rentier capitalism is an inset in the big picture drawn by Thomas Piketty   French economist Thomas Piketty has written a scholarly tome with the humdrum title, Capital in the 21st Century. The book has become an overnight sensation because Piketty documents an inherent tendency for ever-increasing inequality of income and wealth in capitalist economic systems. It is not an accident, he says, that many will be left behind...

A new report from the United Nations entitled Trends in maternal mortality estimates 1990 to 2013 shows that India accounted for 17 percent (i.e. 50000 maternal deaths) of global maternal deaths (i.e 289000 maternal deaths) in 2013. Previously the State of World’s Children 2009 report stated that India’s share in global maternal deaths was a staggering 22 percent in 2005. (Please see the links below).      The latest report on trends in maternal mortality...

-The Business Standard   Agriculture dept has begun the process of collecting data on farmers and their lands Mysore (Karnataka): Process is on to provide unique identification numbers, similar to ‘Aadhaar' issued by the Unique Identification of Authority of India, to farmers in Karnataka. Under the scheme, all details about farmers and their lands, collected under the ‘K-Kisan' scheme, will be pooled and a unique identification number like the ‘Aadhaar' will be issued to...

-Frontline   A Delhi High Court verdict says the State government is bound to ensure that poor and vulnerable sections of society have access to treatment for rare and chronic diseases. SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Mohammed Ahmed Khan looked on helplessly as his father, Sirajuddin, narrated the sordid tale of the loss of four of his children to Gaucher's disease, a rare genetic disease that requires lifelong, exorbitantly expensive enzyme replacement therapy. Sirajuddin, a rickshaw...

-The Hindu   Development is as much a process of providing services as of removing obstacles and giving freedom from all sorts of discrimination. In what is perhaps one of India's most communal, polarising, divisive and personalised election campaigns, we are told far too often that this election is really about development. Yet, none of the political parties clearly defines development either in their speeches or in their manifestoes. So, what do they...