-The Indian Express Nilekani's efforts to convince the NDA of Aadhaar's benefits appear to have paid off. A half-hour meeting that Aadhaar architect Nandan Nilekani had with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month followed by a conferring couple of days later with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has reportedly sorted the go-no go situation for the ambitious UIDAI project. The two meetings and a third that Modi held with his key...

-The Business Standard Of all the measures in the final Union Budget and Rail Budget for 2014-15, the micro-interventions that address food inflation by dismantling supply-side barriers are the most important. They carry added significance in a year when the monsoon has been deficient in a wide swathe of the western and northern parts of the country. The promise to bring down the hold of wholesale warlords in the Agricultural Produce Marketing...

The ADR was set up in 1999 by a group of professors from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. Based on its Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Supreme Court in 2002, and subsequently in 2003, made it mandatory for all candidates contesting elections to disclose criminal, financial and educational background prior to the polls by filing an affidavit with the Election Commission. Since 2002 ADR has been conducting multiple...

-Frontline   Political parties flush with funds provided by corporate houses are winning over journalists, and some news organisations are creating packages for election coverage, making the phenomenon of ‘paid news' all pervasive. THE credibility of journalism and journalists has been greatly undermined by the scourge of cash for coverage, a much-abhorred sickness in the profession worldwide. News space on television, radio and newsprint is compromised with impunity with blatant advertising parading...

-The Hindustan Times   An increasing number of candidates facing criminal charges are being fielded by India's political parties at all levels of elections, including state polls, data from over a 10-year period shows. Underlining the seriousness of the issue, two new studies suggest stronger correlation between wealth, crime and winning ability. Overall 17% of the candidates contesting the 2014 elections have a criminal background, up from 15% in 2009, when the previous...