-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The BJP-led NDA government showed great speed in promulgating an ordinance to push through the land acquisition act, but an investigation by HT reveals that thousands of hectares of land acquired by the government is lying unused in several states. Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh top the list of states where land acquired even decades ago has not been industrialised. In the past 50 years, for instance, the...

-The Hindu What makes public policy exciting and potentially inventive is the contested nature of the public sphere. It is anchored in a diversity of perspectives which challenges the dominance of one subject. India is a country full of paradoxes. The elite in the country are forward-looking; they emphasise the need for reskilling but they conduct all this with backward-looking institutions. An acute observer once said: "we want to be [a] knowledge...

-The Hindu Aim of the exercise is to map damage due to closure of 17,000 govt. schools. Eight months after the BJP government closed down 17,000 government schools in Rajasthan, dramatically pushing up the dropout rate largely among marginal communities, the Congress has decided to undertake a survey, starting in Jaipur's Amber block, to map the damage. Once the audit is over, a campaign to force the State government to reopen the closed...

-The Hindu Orders fresh survey on shortfall in urban areas Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not want one of his pet projects - "Housing for All by 2022" - to miss its target. Mr. Modi has asked for a fresh survey to ascertain the exact housing shortfall in urban areas. The government has announced construction of two crore houses annually to meet the target, but Mr. Modi, who is monitoring the scheme, has instructed...

-The Indian Express Jaipur: The hotly debated Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Amendment Bill 2015 fixing minimum educational qualifications for contesting Panchayat polls in the state, was passed by the state legislative assembly on Friday. With this Rajasthan becomes the only state to have mandatory minimum educational qualifications to contest for Panchayat polls. The Bill was passed by a voice vote by the dominant ruling party even as Opposition legislators raised objections to it...