-Scroll.in Facilities are paltry and the few amenities available don’t work properly. As temperatures climbed up to 46 degrees centigrade in Delhi last week, life for the city’s homeless women became even tougher. Women lodging in Delhi’s homeless night shelters (or raen basera), have few options to beat the heat. Only 21 out of 263 night shelters run by the government-controlled Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board cater to women. Jyoti Banal shifted...

-The Hindu The social activist whose new book on the RTI is just out, worries about the doublespeak in politics today, where rhetoric and substance never match The past couple of months have been hectic for Aruna Roy. The social activist and Magsaysay Award winner has been travelling across the country to promote her book, The RTI Story: Power to the People, which came out in April. After waiting more than a...

-Livemint.com The strategy for doubling farmer incomes will differ from state to state, and from one region to another even within a state After two consecutive years of drought, in 2014-15 and 2015-16, farmers of many crops were hit by low market prices in several states in 2016-17. In view of widespread discontent, there is a sense of urgency about addressing their issues. Therefore, the conference organized by the ministry of agriculture...

-Frontline.in The Assembly elections have put under intense scrutiny Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development which is touted as worthy of replication throughout the country. Audit reports of the CAG provide ample evidence of it being inefficient, corrupt and not beneficial to the common people. THE standard indicators of development, as is understood in theory and practice, comprise a range of indices, and not necessarily the level of private investment in...

-Hindustan Times While Delhi came under flak for running fewer buses than that it did three years ago and therefore failing to enforce blanket road rationing, compliance of even basic anti-pollution measures was impossible in the NCR because of poor infrastructure. The Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) mandated by the Supreme Court to counter air pollution was meant to be an effort in regional cooperation. The entire National Capital Region (NCR), which...