-The Hindu There is no disparagement of subsidies in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh because those who attack the social welfare policies of the Congress regard them as examples of good governance by a party of the Right Three propositions dominate explanations of the Congress party's rout, the Bharatiya Janata Party's impressive victory and the Aam Aadmi Party's stunning success in Delhi in the recent Assembly elections. One, that there is a strong...

-Outlook Some 31 per cent of MPs in the Lok Sabha have criminal cases pending against them, and their pay package is 68 times higher than the national per capita income, according to the National Social Watch Report on Governance and Development-2013 released here today. "The pay package of MPs in India is higher than that of their counterparts in Singapore, Japan, Italy, and Pakistan. In terms of the ratio of the...

-Governance Now Professor Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti, a research programme of the New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and one of our leading ‘election watchers', maintains that we must not read too much in the higher voting numbers and credits the election commission for preparing more accurate voter rolls. Excerpts from an interview with Trithesh Nandan: * What do you make of the phenomenon of higher turnouts? Everybody...

-Outlook   Rejecting the Lokpal Bill under consideration in Rajya Sabha as "weak" and ineffective, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal today said nobody except Congress will be benefited by its passage while Rahul Gandhi will get the credit for it. He also said he was saddened by Anna Hazare's stand that he would break his fast if the Lokpal Bill which is in the Upper House is enacted, warning that the proposed...

-The Indian Express A year ago, in Delhi's dark December of 2012, 24-year-old Natasha Raghuvanshi was on Rajpath, occupying the streets with thousands of other angry young people, carrying with her the memory of being stalked, flashed at, and groped while returning home from college. Aswathy Senan, a 27-year-old Delhi University student, was there because it seemed to be "the last straw" - "the accumulated anger and helplessness" of many Indian...