-PTI He noted that India's performance in poverty reduction and public welfare schemes is now lower even than that of poor countries Vested interests of individuals and "lobbying" among political parties is acting as impediment in India's quest for poverty reduction, noted economist Jean Dreze has said. The economist said it was "Ironical" that during the peak period of the country's development, the corresponding indexes for poverty reduction, nutrition and health status have...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government may have blamed institutions like Comptroller and Auditor General for the 'policy paralysis' during UPA-2 but on Sunday, President Pranab Mukherjee was all praise for CAG, Election Commission and Central Vigilance Commission, saying they were strengthening democracy by their "impartiality and capacity to take decision with independence". Speaking at a function of Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) here, the President stressed on "urgency...

-The Business Standard The dominant theme in the pre-election discourse is that misrule by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in its second term has led to sharply lower growth of gross domestic product (GDP), which Narendra Modi will reverse, the way he has made Gujarat shine. But the evidence on hand does not support this correlation between the quality of national political leadership and growth performance. If anything, there is...

-The Hindu     The extent of violence against the girl as foetus and infant shows how deep the bias against women is and why they will be secure only if India introspects and changes Over the next few weeks, there will be many tussles between our mostly male politicians over India's security. But almost no one will ask if a country can be secure when half its citizens live in deepening insecurity, threatened...

-Live Mint   Rights laws offer an important lesson for the new government: you cannot legislate your way out of state failure It is well known that the Indian state suffers from a serious crisis of implementation capability. So deep is this crisis that it cannot even reliably perform the most routine tasks like moving money and getting employees to show up at work. So, it is hardly surprising that rights laws have...