-NDTV A recent headline in Quartz, an otherwise serious media agency, claims that Jammu and Kashmir is the first state in India to "commit to a universal bASIc income" (UBI). A glance at the original source quickly negates this claim: it is based on nothing more than "seeds of a thought" (sic) from the Finance Minister of J&K about possible cash transfers for a small minority of poor households. This is...

-The Hindu The ‘batta’ system of rolling financing has shrunk as money cannot be withdrawn from banks, and bearer cheques pile up VaranASI: For the already distressed weavers and poorly paid labourers in the famous BanarASI sari industry, demonetisation has come as a crippling blow. Withdrawal limits of Rs. 50,000 on current accounts (around a 10th of the actual requirement in the trade) and falling business post November 8 have constrained traders from...

-Hindustan Times Water management should be at the heart of all smart city planning. While there is a lot of emphASIs on transportation and infrastructure development, water management remains limited to treatment of waste water, quality monitoring, and smart metering in the government’s smart cities strategy. No clear plans have emerged on how smart cities are to be linked with their water catchments to ensure sustainable provision of water. More clarity is...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A list of corporate loan defaulters will soon be made public as the Supreme Court directed the Centre on Tuesday to provide a compendium of corporate entities, who owe Rs 500 crore or more to banks, in four weeks. A bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud brushed ASIde the RBI's objections in October against making public...

-The Indian Express De-listing of 255 parties by the EC has thrown up data on distribution of India’s minor political outfits and the nature of political entrepreneurship in the country. On December 23, The Indian Express began reporting a multi-part series on 255 political parties that had been de-listed by the Election Commission after it found that none of these had put up a candidate for any Vidhan Sabha or Lok...