-Economic and Political Weekly A survey to identify who the poor are and how many are actually poor is necessary if programmes and benefits targeted at the needy are to reach them. The Socio Economic Caste Census, of which partial results have been published, was intended to do this. Yet, even a cursory look at the figures indicates that they call for a willing suspension of disbelief. N C Saxena (naresh.saxena@gmail.com) was...

A long-pending demand of civil society activists and NGOs, who are campaigning for probity, accountability, and transparency in public life, is going to be fulfilled soon. A welcome move has been made by the Government to enumerate and publish data on crimes committed against media persons, Right to Information activists, and whistleblowers in the forthcoming edition of Crime in India, which is published annually by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)...

-The Indian Express Socio-Economic and Caste Census can help identify welfare beneficiaries without falling into a binary trap. The release earlier this month of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) has been followed by much media analysis. Some have expressed scepticism about what it shows and others have treated it as yet another set of numbers on how many are poor in India. It has also been variously hailed as revolutionising benefit...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: The Right to Information (RTI) is turning into an increasingly opaque idea as more posts of the information commissioner are falling vacant. Vacancies for the post in the country increased from 14% in 2014 to 20% in 2015, reveals a nation-wide study conducted by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), an NGO. According to the report, the number of information commissioners in the country has been reduced from 120...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Often when there is a heavy traffic jam, cabbie Surya Prasad (name changed) turns to a friendly passenger, hands over a blank post card and requests him to write a few words in English addressed to his children residing back home in Khaspur village, near Patna. Even in today's era dominated by cell phones and email, millions of Indians continue to rely on postal services to reach...