-The Hindu Although Ashis Nandy has explained the context in which he made his corruption remark, the furious pace of TV and Internet does not allow space for a re-evaluation As I watched the clip of Ashis Nandy, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, belligerently asserting that most of the corruption in India was the work of the Scheduled Castes (SC), the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), I thought...

-The Hindu One of the most prominent features of India’s middle-class-driven public culture has been an obsession about our GDP growth rate, and a facile equation of that number with a sense of national achievement or impending arrival into affluence. In media headlines, political speeches, and everyday conversations, the GDP growth rate number — whether it is five per cent or eight per cent or whatever — has become a staple...

-The Times of India Six years ago, the Sachar Committee reportshowed that the Muslim community in India suffers from severe deprivations in education, employment, health services, public infrastructure, access to financial services leading to much higher poverty than other religious groups, somewhat like the condition of scheduled castes and tribes. The government responded by setting up a separate ministry for minority affairs, and launching several programs to provide benefits to the...

The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...

-The Hindu Difficulty in implementing schemes, owing to conceptual confusion at multiple levels: Khurshid External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday attributed the difficulty in administering and implementing welfare programmes for Muslims to conceptual confusion evident at multiple levels — from courts through policymakers and social scientists and experts. Mr. Khurshid, who previously held charge of the Ministry of Minority Affairs, said a Supreme Court interim stay had facilitated the implementation of four...