-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Congress talks about safeguarding privacy, Trinamool warns of the misuse of surveillance and CPM proposes limiting the influence of technology behemoths. Leading political parties have woken up to the issue of digital rights in their poll manifestos, a move that has been welcomed by civil society and activists. The Congress manifesto promises to safeguard privacy and personal data by passing laws. It also lays down ambitious...

-The Indian Express Both BJP’s PM Kisan and Congress’s Nyay acknowledge that small and marginal farmers and bottom 20 per cent of population have not benefited from current policies. But both schemes raise further questions. It is time to celebrate the biggest spectacle of democracy on this planet. About 900 million people are eligible to exercise their right to choose their representatives to the Lok Sabha. This festival of democracy will...

  Growth in rural wages not only indicates economic prosperity of the masses, it is also considered important so as to generate effective demand for goods and services, which is produced by various sectors of the economy. When money becomes available in the hands of rural workers due to government spending on programmes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), it generates demand for commodities. The production of commodities...

-The Indian Express Government agencies and courts can no longer give precedence to one kind of public interest (that of middle and upper classes) over another kind of public interest (that of the slum residents). On March 18, the Delhi High Court held that slum dwellers are not secondary citizens but citizens with equal rights. Authorities can evict slum dwellers only when their occupation of the land is illegal. Any unannounced...

-The Telegraph The impact the beast called social Media can really have on the ensuing general elections Sometime in the late 2000s, a young software engineer who voluntarily ran social Media propaganda for the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party got an opportunity to attend a BJP social Media meet in Bangalore. Among the people who saw this young man speak there was the then Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi....