-The Times of India Over 113 million persons were "seeking or available for work", that is, they were unemployed, according to Census 2011 data released today. This huge number made up around 15% of the working age population of about 748 million persons in the 15 to 60 years age group. These unemployed persons were distributed over nearly 70 million families or households. That's about 28% of all households in the...

-The Hindustan Times To check rising public expenditure, the government's two biggest money-spender schemes - subsidised ration for poor and job guarantee in rural areas - will soon be on the Aadhaar-enabled Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) platform. The disbursal of subsidy for cooking gas cylinders will come back on the DBT platform after the previous UPA government decided to put it on the hold just before general elections. The UPA, which started transfer...

-Down to Earth Tribal affairs minister asked to withdraw objections to Maharashtra's Village Forest Rules that allow forest department take control over forests in violation of FRA The Forest Rights Act (FRA), which protects the rights of tribal people and forest dwellers over their forests, is under fire like never before. Multiple ministries in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government are putting pressure on the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA)...

-The Indian Express For a government that won office on the plank of fighting corruption and promising ‘‘achhe din'' to citizens disgruntled by poor service delivery, one would have thought putting in place an effective anti-corruption and grievance redressal framework would be a top priority. However, after 100 days of being in power, the Modi sarkar's report card on transparency and accountability disappoints. It is well established that openness in government functioning...

-The Business Standard Ministers in the Narendra Modi government have been busy making presentations on their 100 days of work. But what these presentations do not mention is that decisions by ministers have been few, with plenty of papers and files moving to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which is increasingly emerging as a centralised clearance point, even for routine and ordinary issues. Though policy paralysis was a term used freely...