-Business Standard While the task force did not categorically say which methodology should be adopted, it said it would make its recommendation within six months after consulting all stakeholders including states Keeping the issue of poverty line open, a task force of NITI Aayog has questioned the possibility of substituting the line with the data on deprivation given by the socio economic and Caste Census (SECC). While the task force did not...

-The Hindu Business Line We need a holistic policy to address India’s housing shortage issue With the Union Cabinet clearing a ₹81,975-crore plan to build one crore houses in rural areas over the next three years under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)-Rural, the Narendra Modi government has given concrete backing to its promise of achieving universal coverage in housing by 2022. While providing housing for all has been the dream of...

-Outlook The structural basis is being laid out for future authoritarianism at the behest of foreign biometric and surveillance technology What distinguishes Barack Obama and David Cameron from Narendra Modi? Obama and Cameron oppose biometric identification but Modi supports it. On 11 May 2005 in the US, the Real ID Act for a national ID was rushed through US Congress and the US Senate with utmost urgency, a legacy of George Bush...

-Down to Earth Activists have been demanding that the land reforms Bill be brought in Parliament since 2012 Following a two-day protest by more than a thousand landless rural poor at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, activists claim Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured protestors that the government will bring the Bill supporting homestead land rights for them before the Parliament. Land rights activists, who met the prime minister at the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Eight states or Union territories, including the Prime Minister's home state Gujarat, have not yet implemented the National Food Security Act, 2013, the Supreme Court was informed yesterday. Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Dadra and Nagar Haveli are the other defaulters. The law aims to provide up to 75 per cent of the rural population and up to 50 per cent of the urban population...