-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Ten members of civil society, including Aruna Roy and Arundhati Roy, have moved the Supreme Court expressing solidarity with activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan who is facing contempt proceedings on attorney general K K Venugopal’s petition accusing him of making “false, malicious, dishonest and reckless” allegations on appointment of CBI’s interim director. The Roy duo, along with Wajahat Habibullah, Harsh Mandher, Jayati Ghosh, Prabhat Patnaik, I P...

-Macroscan.org Jayati Ghosh argues that a combination of universal basic services, universal employment guarantee and universal pensions to ensure a minimum income is more workable and desirable rather than cash transfers to individual households. Please click here to access the article. ...

-The Telegraph There are enormous questions about implementation, and the first issue is that of identifying the farmers Everyone expected the Narendra Modi government to do something big — or at least promise something big — before the general elections. Everyone also sensed that it would be something to do with farmers, one of the economic and social concerns that have now also become a political talking point. But perhaps no one...

-The Hindu Invites political parties for discussion; Congress, RJD and NCP agree to participate so far As political parties prepare their election manifestos and promises, a group of civil society leaders and concerned citizens on Tuesday released a document, Reclaiming the Republic, which they hope will shape the political agenda in the run up to the Lok Sabha poll. The comprehensive list includes judicial and electoral reforms, repeal of laws which threaten personal...

Against the backdrop of the Finance Minister Shri Piyush Goyal announcing the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKSN) programme during his budget speech on 1st February, 2019, it becomes essential to differentiate between 12.56 crore operational holding households (enumerated, as per the Agriculture Census) and 13.33 crore ownership holding households (estimated, as per the 70th round National Sample Survey report no. 571) pertaining to size upto 2 hectares. In his budget...