-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to explain its failure to implement the previous government's flagship food security programme, aimed at providing cheap grains to two-thirds of the population with a special focus on children and pregnant and lactating women. The scheme, estimated to cost Rs 1.25 lakh crore a year, was launched in 2013 and was to come into force from July last year. But the...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: About 90% of buildings in the national capital are not structurally equipped to withstand a seismic zone (SZ) IV earthquake but the Centre and Delhi government are “not interested” in taking any corrective measures, the Delhi high court said on Wednesday. Saying that the government was waiting for a “disaster to happen”, a bench of justice BD Ahmed and justice Sanjeev Sachdeva directed the Centre and Delhi government...

-Business Standard Indian farming is labour intensive as mechanization is expensive. This model might change it while keeping the cost very low. The single biggest challenge in farming is debt. A large share of farmers’ insurmountable debt burden comes from purchase of farm equipment. Mechanized farming results in higher productivity but is notoriously capital intensive. A 40 HP tractor with 2 basic implements (a rotavator and a cultivator) and a trolley costs...

-Livemint.com BJP’s U-turn on the proposed land Act reflects a re-balancing of deeper political forces that are at work in India’s political economy The recent U-turn by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government on the proposed amendment to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (henceforth the land Act), can be viewed narrowly as a Congress victory in the ongoing tit-for-tat game that is short-changing...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Press Council of India has sought a clarification from the Union government over a gag order the home ministry issued last month to restrict media access to senior officials. In a letter sent yesterday to the information and broadcasting ministry, the council, the statutory body to regulate the print media in the country, sought an explanation on why a "section of the central government had asked senior...