-The Telegraph Citizens’ participation in policy-making is an important factor in assessing the quality of democracy Within five days of the announcement of Agnipath, the scheme had been amended 10 times, raising the larger question concerning consultation in policy-making. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government has taken a number of policy decisions without public consultation — from demonetisation, which saw 60 changes in 43 days, to GST, which has been...

-Newsclick.in In the past five years, agri workers’ wage has increased by only about Rs.15 per year. For those leaders of the country who are tearing their hair trying to figure out how to get the economy moving, boost growth, increase investment and create jobs, it would be instructive to look at the plight of the largest economic class in the country – agricultural labourers. Numbering upward of 14 crore, they are...

-The Hindu Only 13% “strongly trusted” private TV news channels compared to 31% who said so about newspapers Indian news consumers’ trust in private TV news channels is relatively much lower than their belief in newspapers and yet television continues to be the dominant news source. Notably, their trust in online news websites is lower than even the private channels, while the former is the third preferred source for accessing news after...

-PTI/ The Hindu Despite the legal deterrent in place, people in many parts of the city started bursting crackers by dusk A large number of high-decibel firecrackers thundered throughout Deepavali night on Monday as people in Delhi flouted the ban imposed on these by the city government. Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai last week said bursting firecrackers in the national capital on Deepavali will attract a jail term of up to six months...

-Hindustan Times Earlier, the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) had predicted that the air quality may deteriorate to "very Poor" on Monday morning. Delhi's air quality on Monday inched towards the "very Poor" category on Diwali morning with the air quality index (AQI) at 298 at 6 am. According to data, 19 out of the 35 monitoring stations in the city recorded air quality in the "very...