-The Indian Express One-fourth of the urban population lives in these small towns (20,000 to 1,00,000 population). These 7 crore people need amenities to match up to their ‘urban’ status. Many of these towns may not be in the vicinity of big cities. Small towns in India are something of an oxymoron. They are far removed from cities in character and appearance and are constantly struggling to establish their “urbanness”. A...

-The Hindu Business Line Realising that DeMo pulverised MSMEs, an anxious Centre wants to hurriedly make amends. But loan disbursals may not help The spat between the government and the RBI is primarily in the realm of macroeconomic issues like the size of the reserves the central bank should hold and the methods of monitoring loans that could go bad. Yet, the political intensity of the government’s moves cannot be missed. Apart from...

-The Hindu We won’t allow anyone to cut our trees, say the women of Balarampur village For three generations now, and spanning 40 years, Chaturi Sahu, 70, has been unfailingly sending one male member from her family to patrol the nearby Jhinkargadi forest to ensure that its trees and shrubs are untouched. Year after year, her father-in-law, husband and son, who are part of the foot soldiers of Balarampur, a nondescript village in...

-Scroll.in News channels in Assam often distort, defame, suppress and sensationalise, all to advance the perceived of the Axomiya jati. A crowd of two-wheelers rushes forward. In the melee, a young man beats the motorcyclists with a thick bamboo stick. The video ends as one of the two-wheelers loses control, as its rider tries to avoid the bamboo stick, and collides with the person recording the video. Cheery captions appear: “Bholuka bnaah [bholuka...

-The Hindu One student is making a drone, another a dancing robot. Scenes from two government schools in Delhi The walls of the entryway of the school are covered with bright charts that talk about everything from sustainable development and ‘Swachh Bharat’ to ‘happiness goals’ and exam schedules. The cream-coloured floor gleams and the sun peeps out from the clouds behind the rows of students — dupattas pinned, shirts tucked in, not...