-The Hindu Democracies are not sustained by obedient productive units in so-called knowledge-based economies. But that is precisely what the new National Education Policy envisages “Public policy,” according to Douglas Gomery, “is the making of governmental rules and regulations to benefit not one individual but society as a whole. It asks, what is the best way to conceive and evaluate policies aimed at the public as a whole and its various subgroups?”...

-Livemint.com Increasing women’s ownership of land in rural areas can help cut poverty and boost agricultural output in a country like India where dependence on agriculture is high New Delhi: Increasing women’s ownership of land in rural areas can help cut poverty and boost agricultural output in a country like India where dependence on agriculture is high. Women constitute 30.3% of the total number of cultivators and 42.6% of the agricultural labourers...

-The Hindu A crowd funding platform for legal fees, www.azadi.in, is enabling greater ease of access to justice for all. The founders are four young men from Kochi Four young men from Kochi - Radhakrishnan Ram Manohar, Siddharth Vijayan, Praveen Paul and Stalvart John – a couple of years back thought up something that won our hearts – ‘Sisters Across Borders’. Those were hard times in flood-hit Kashmir; aid was pouring in...

-The Hindu Major challenges in health data data collection discussed Data collection system in India needs to be completely revamped as different sources lead to different conclusions, Dr. Bibek Debroy, a member of the NITI Aayog, said at a conference held last week. During the “Better data for better health” conference, organised by the observer research foundation (ORF), Dr. Debroy said the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the largest organisation in India conducting...

-The Hindu We need to rethink social safety nets in India’s growing economy so that they can also focus on the accidents of life rather than solely on the accidents of birth. Sometimes the grand narratives of the Left and the Right do not seem to have any relationship with the lived experiences of ordinary Indians. For the past two decades, the Left has tried to expand social welfare programmes for the...