-The Telegraph The time for informality is over — the Election Commission’s stature requires legal heft When Winston Churchill stood for re-election as prime minister in 1945 after leading Britain to victory in the Second World War, few could have predicted his resounding defeat at the hustings. Churchill was the same fiery, belligerent and all-powerful leader inspiring awe amongst his countrymen. Yet the country had slowly but surely changed when nobody was...

-The Telegraph Rahul cited Sreedhanya’s achievement in Wayanad as evidence that the job scheme was working and took a dig at Narendra Modi Kalpetta (Kerala): The first tribal woman from Kerala to qualify for the IAS told Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday that her parents were beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Sreedhanya Suresh said her parents had educated their two children with the money they earned from the rural...

-The Indian Express Interestingly, researchers observed that as much as 5 million people left the workforce between 2016 and 2018. "The beginning of the decline in jobs coincided with demonetisation in November 2016, although no direct causal relationship can be established based only on these trends," The State of Working India (SWI) 2019 report released by Azim Premji University says. Bengaluru: Researchers and economists of Azim Premji University, based in Bangalore,...

-THe Telegraph Sugarcane labour contractors run a system that discriminates against women by appearing to be gender-neutral After all, it is not genital mutilation. Or vagina sealing. Those are some of the agonizing traditional rituals for girls in various countries intended to make them attractive to men and sexually faithful to their husbands. Attempts to put an end to these practices began in the 1970s, and the United Nations requested healthcare workers...

-Livemint.com * Over 40% of India is in the grip of abnormally dry conditions. Will the elections bring any relief? * The situation in Maharashtra is approaching the 2016-like crisis, when consecutive years of drought forced the state government to supply drinking water to Latur by train NEW DELHI: Between November of last year when Sharad Markad opened a cattle relief camp in drought-hit Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra and now, the price of...