-The Indian Express Processes of knowledge diffusion reinforce inequalities. We need explicit pro-poor targeting of efforts There is much enthusiasm today for efforts to improve access to information about poor people’s rights and entitlements. In a much-debated recent example, Facebook’s “Free Basics” platform aimed to provide free access to a selected slice of the internet (including, of course, Facebook). In arguing for Free Basics, Mark Zuckerberg said that “everyone… deserves access to...

-Economic and Political Weekly Mihir Shah (mihir.shah@nic.in) is Secretary, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, a grass-roots organisation based in Dewas District of Madhya Pradesh. A close examination of Bihar's recent growth experience reveals several paradoxes. These are paradoxes only with reference to certain orthodox positions widely held in development economics. Resolving these paradoxes helps formulate a more incisive understanding of what bottlenecks lie in the way of eliminating poverty in Bihar and opens the...

-The Asian Age Is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) a “living monument” of the failure of the economic policies of the Indian National Congress which has ruled the country for all but roughly 14 years since August 1947? Or is it that the MGNREGA, a law enacted a decade ago which seeks to implement the world’s biggest and most ambitious job creating scheme, one of the few...

-The Financial Express With almost all ration cards in the country digitised and 40% seeded with Aadhaar, several states have now installed electronic point of sale (ePOS) devices at their fair price shops (FPSs). With almost all ration cards in the country digitised and 40% seeded with Aadhaar, several states have now installed electronic point of sale (ePOS) devices at their fair price shops (FPSs). The ePOS devices that track the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The capital lost a dubious crown on Friday with the country's pollution watchdog saying it is not India's most polluted city, perhaps not even the second worst. But Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) data for the September 2015-January 2016 period clearly shows that Delhi's air is far from healthy. CPCB has published air quality indices (AQI) for 24 cities that help in comparing pollution levels at...