-TheWire.in In a country where a majority of the population is engaged in increasingly unviable agriculture, shouldn’t politicians talk about the trade rules that make it so?                 One cannot help but draw parallels between the elections in the US and those in the states in India. While it is best left to psephologists to analyse voting patterns and election results, it’s telling to compare the issues on which the elections are...

-Hindustan Times The last few weeks have seen a spate of government notifications making Aadhaar mandatory for receiving the benefits of government programmes. The most recent orders relate to an Aadhaar requirement for children to access schools (even under their fundamental right to education), mid-day meals, supplementary nutrition (ICDS) and scholarships. These directives raise a number of ethical as well as practical questions, besides violating children’s right to education, nutrition and...

-The Telegraph After the third general elections held in 1962, the scholar-statesman, C. Rajagopalachari, wrote a fascinating, if now forgotten, essay on the imperfections of our young democracy. "The Indian electorate", remarked Rajaji, "suffers from well-known defects from which Western democracies are relatively free. The Indian voters are in great measure poor and vulnerable to bribery: even a day's expense for food serves to buy a large number of the poor...

-The Hindu Business Line Experts concerned over low allocations for key schemes New Delhi: It’s like demonetisation didn’t happen at all, activists and economists exclaim. Budget 2017-18, coming right after the demonetisation move, had raised hopes of greater allocations for social sectors — what with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra of Sabka saath sabka vikaas. Yet, there is all-round disappointment. “It is quite extraordinary. Post demonetisation, this is when you needed substantial moves for...

-The Hindu On the tenth anniversary of the historic passage of the Forest Rights Act, tribal resistance to defend their rights is growing even as government after government tries to dilute its provisions On this day 10 years ago the historic Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act was passed in the Lok Sabha. Its conception and passage was the result of the decades of struggles and...