-Down to Earth The court’s suggestions, like making MSP a legal right and increasing it to thrice the cost of production, are practical but need effort in implementation, say experts The Punjab and Haryana high court recently recommended that minimum support price (MSP) be made farmers’ legal right and it be set at three times the cost of production. But will these or a slew of other measures the court suggested address...

-The Indian Express What is Article 370 and 35A: A recent central ordinance, which extends reservation to SCs and STs in J&K, throws the spotlight on Article 35A, as well as Article 370 from which it derives. What are these two provisions? * What is Article 370? Included in the Constitution on October 17, 1949, Article 370 exempts J&K from the Indian Constitution (except Article 1 and Article 370 itself) and permits...

-The Indian Express State institutions have been complicit in denying justice to the victim. The criminal justice system of the country is “virtually collapsing” and “as it is slow, inefficient and ineffective, people are losing confidence in the system”. This was stated by the Justice Malimath Committee (2000-2003), which had been constituted to recommend reforms in the criminal justice system. Thanks to certain lobbies, the salient recommendations of the Committee were...

-The Hindu A large number of caste names are difficult to tabulate, says official. New Delhi: Census 2021 is unlikely to collect “caste wise” data as a similar exercise conducted in 2011 by another ministry threw up about 40 lakh caste names that were difficult to tabulate, a senior government official said on Friday. The decennial exercise would involve 31 lakh trained enumerators, with data collected digitally using Android based mobile phones. The Census...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Hundreds of patients, including those requiring emergency treatment, were turned away by Delhi’s top public hospitals on Friday, the second day of the strike called by resident doctors protesting against the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill. A 14-year-old girl, who had come to Safdarjung Hospital with chest pain, wasn’t admitted into the emergency ward. “The doctors said my condition was not life-threatening and asked me to...