-The Hindu Information has not graduated to storytelling to dent the regime’s idea of agricultural policy I remember years ago the Delhi School of Economics had many great scholars visit the campus. They talked passionately and knowledgeably not just about the subject but about knowledge as a vocation. One of the most memorable of these performances was by Teodor Shanin, the economic historian who also edited Peasants and Peasant Societies. He talked...

-The Indian Express The Niti Aayog's report, submitted before the United Nations, acknowledges that anti-poverty programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) helped weaker sections of the society. Vindicating the UPA government’s stand on pulling people out of poverty, India’s Voluntary National Review Report on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals to the United Nations has said that sustained growth of 8.3 per cent from 2004-05 to 2011-12,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A group of retired bureaucrats have written an open letter ruing the "rising authoritarianism and majoritarianism" that is choking dissent, and urging public authorities to take "corrective action" to "reclaim and defend the spirit of the Constitution". "Argumentation and discussion about different perspectives - the lifeblood not only of institutions of learning but of democracy itself -are being throttled," the letter says. "Disagreement and dissent are considered seditious...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's labour arm has accused the Niti Aayog of being committed to a powerful corporate lobby, said it was responsible for giving the Narendra Modi government an anti-labour face and called for revamping the think tank. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh's scathing criticism of the think tank - that has replaced the Congress-era Planning Commission - coincided with celebrations by the BJP and the government to...

-Livemint.com IT employees in Tamil Nadu, represented by unions, are seeking intervention of courts and state governments to prevent the companies’ growing penchant for job cuts Chennai: Two unions in Tamil Nadu, the only state where labour groups have been actively supporting information technology (IT) employees, have become their voice in the fight against layoffs in the industry. The IT employees’ wing of the New Democratic Labour Front (NDLF) on Tuesday sought the...