-Hindustan Times It is pertinent to realise that 34 out of 1,000 children born in the country die in the mother’s womb itself. Nine lakh children below the age of five die much before they can comprehend the meaning of independent India and approximately 19 crore people in the country are compelled to sleep on an empty stomach. The history of the nation won’t record the names of Shikha, Manasi or Parul...

-Newsclick.in Leaking EPFO enrolment numbers, and tall tales about trucks and buses, and doctors and engineers, marked PM Modi’s deceptive claims on jobs in his Lok Sabha speech. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when at first we start to deceive" wrote Sir Walter Scott two centuries ago. The Modi govt.’s attempt to create data on non-existent jobs confirms this truth. Since last year, an increasingly cornered govt. has been marshalling all...

-TheWire.in Despite knowing the problem, both the state and central governments have failed to address the crisis that UP’s potato farmers are facing. Devi Singh (46) grows potatoes in the rabi season in Saras, a village of 1,200 people in Mathura, part of Uttar Pradesh’s potato belt. In 2017, he suffered massive losses as the price of potatoes in the wholesale market fell well below the cost of production. Last Thursday, he...

-The Indian Express There are grand promises. But the actual increases in budgetary outlays are shockingly low. This government is especially good at optics, at managing public perceptions to persuade people that it is working for them, rather than doing so. So it is no surprise that Arun Jaitley’s pre-election budget speech went on about how much his government cares for the people, the poor, for farmers, for women, for people...

-Down to Earth New laws to regulate sand mining have not had much impact Illegal sand mining is a perennial problem in India. But it assumes gargantuan proportions right before the onset of monsoon because swollen rivers make extraction extremely difficult during the rainy season. To make most of the lean period, mine owners and hoarders try to dig out as much sand as possible, through legal and illegal means, in...