-The Hindu The political scientist on the danger to India’s checks and balances, and the perils of the democratisation of mediocrity in universities Professor of political science and a holder of the Madan Lal Sobti Chair, Devesh Kapur has been director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India at University of Pennsylvania since 2006. Mr. Kapur, who recently co-edited Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design, says our public universities...

-The Times of India About a quarter of India's labour force, some 11 crore people, work in non-farm enterprises that can broadly be described as the unorganised sector. Of these 6.3 crore enterprises, none are covered under the Companies Act or Factories Act. In fact, more than two thirds are unregistered. These are not some fly by night vendors — 82% operate from homes or permanent structures outside homes, 98% are open...

MG Road is seldom considered as a safe place for working women who travel for work to either Gurgaon or Delhi. Almost everyday untoward incidents related to molestation, sexual harassment, kidnapping or rape that occur here are reported in various NCR-based newspapers. Clearly, safety of women office-goers and female workers is one of the major determinants of their (low) labour force participation, even in urban locations like Gurgaon or Delhi....

-The Indian Express Nagaland spent highest per day on prisoners at Rs 139.22; Delhi lowest at Rs 31.31 The governments of Delhi, Goa and Maharashtra spent the least per day on three meals given to a prisoner in 2015, much lower than the national average of Rs 52.42, data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has shown. With the Bombay High Court recently directing the Maharashtra government to take steps to improve...

-The Hindu Business line It must focus on human security and societal development rather than feed the avarice of a golden ghetto minority The discipline of economics has long been obsessed with gross domestic product as the base measure of development. Contemporary economic globalisation and its dominant neoliberal ideology see other considerations as not worth more than a passing glance. Neoliberalism, which used to be referred to as the Washington Consensus, was promoted by...