-The Indian Express An intriguing paradox of contemporary Indian politics has been insufficiently noted: corporate India finances India’s elections, substantially if not wholly, but it is unable to determine election outcomes. Money matters, but it is not always electorally decisive. The recent Uttar Pradesh elections provide the clearest illustration of this proposition. As is well known, the Congress, BJP and BSP were all better financed than the SP which, especially after the...
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No One Killed Agriculture
-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...
More »Aadhaar and MGNREGA are made for each other-Neelakshi Mann, Varad Pande and Jairam Ramesh
-The Hindu A definite acknowledgement of the potential of Aadhar for public service delivery, and especially for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) by Bharat Bhatti, Jean Drèze, and Reetika Khera in their article “Experiments with Aadhaar” (editorial page, The Hindu, June 27, 2012), is a small step for Aadhaar, but a giant leap for the authors! Process re-engineering in government is never easy, there is enormous resistance both...
More »Farm suicides rise in Maharashtra, State still leads the list-P Sainath
-The Hindu It accounted for well over a fifth of the total of 14,027 deaths in 2011 With a figure of at least 14,027 in 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the total number of farm suicides since 1995 has touched 2,70, 940. The State of Maharashtra shows a rise in numbers yet again, logging 3,337 against 3,141 farmers’ suicides the previous year (and 2,872 in 2009). This, despite...
More »Waiting for a law-Dr KM Shyamprasad
Regulations covering public health should override personal rights and the country cannot wait any more for a good public health law. The health care industry, including institutions of medical education, hospitals and pharmaceutical businesses, have grown into behemoths that can do considerable harm in the absence of independent and effective regulatory systems. While there are no success stories in the regulation of any kind of industry in India, I will focus...
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