-Outlook.com The obligation of the police is not only to control crime and maintain peace but to do in an unbiased and even-handed manner, writes Vipul Mudgal A disturbing template of policing is emerging in India: one of selective and disproportionate action against some, deliberate inaction against others and collusion with a section of troublemakers. All these at the cost of neutrality and fair play. If there is something ominous about the...

-IdeasforIndia.in Usharmukti, a project of the Government of West Bengal, is being carried out in collaboration with civil society organisations in the western part of the state, to carry out watershed activities under MNREGA to conserve soil and water. In this note, Ashwini Kulkarni describes the main idea behind and working of the innovative project from her visit to the project area. When a farmer says that with potato in Rabi season...

-The Hindu While the children’s families blame the staff of Kota’s J.K. Lon Hospital for negligence, studies show that the government hospital is poorly equipped and understaffed. Mohammed Iqbal reports on the failure of the primary healthcare system which has led to the deaths of more than a hundred children in the last 40 days When four-month-old Tejas had a constant cough, ran a high fever and experienced shortness of breath in...

-The Hindu The central bank’s shift of focus from financial stability to inflation targeting could have led to regulatory infirmity Inflation is back in the news and attention has willy-nilly turned on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This would lead us to recognise what the central bank is mandated to do and assess how much of its objective it actually achieves. The establishment of some of the world’s oldest central banks was...

-The Indian Express A reworking of curriculum and activities is urgently needed for the age band from four to eight. ASER 2019 report underlines this While the importance of good early childhood education has been known for a long time, the draft New Education Policy (released in June 2019) links the “severe learning crisis” to what goes on with young children in India. The voluminous policy document points out that close...