-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Just four of the 26 persons executed in India since 1991 belonged to the Muslim community, and yet a perception has been created by some media channels in the aftermath of the hanging of Yakub Memon that members of the minority community are being targeted, said government sources. An internal report by the I&B ministry has taken exception to the "tenor of discussion'' in the four...

-Livemint.com Effective policy changes at the state-level are needed as this is where the problem and its solutions lie—and not in a National Agricultural Market There have been many attempts at alleviating the pain of the farmer in India, be it natural calamities or market risks, but nothing seems to work, and the problems of farmer distress and indebtedness continue to grow. For some time now, there has been a focus...

-Livemint.com Will a development record alone be enough to win elections? There is a popular saying in Bihar that people in the state do not cast their vote, but vote their caste. Lalu Prasad Yadav’s 15-year rule till 2005 was built on the Muslim-Yadav equation. The 2010 elections marked a break in this trend, according to many commentators. In a column after the 2010 Bihar elections, political scientist Milan Vaishnav attributed Nitish...

-Economic and Political Weekly A number of state agencies and non-governmental organisations have come forward to facilitate farmers/breeders to register their crop varieties and obtain plant variety certifi cates. But can these agencies bring forth a change in the mindset of the small farmers and seed savers' groups who view the current intellectual property regime with scepticism and continue to keep away from it? Shalini Bhutani (shalinibhutani@hotmail.com) is a legal researcher and...

-The Tribune The Supreme Court may take time to decide upon existence or non-existence of the “right to privacy”. The Aadhaar project should not be scrapped.It should be implemented with safeguards to prevent the misuse of biometric data. The tussle over right to privacy is is still on in the Supreme Court of India. While the government has already completed 75 per cent of its work, debate on the existence of one...