-Hindustan Times The key to this problem lies in the way political and electoral financing are conducted in this country The stranglehold of political parties on the electoral and political system continues to increase with time. The anti-defection law, passed in 1985, formalised the control of political parties even on Parliament. Despite a large number of candidates on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), the candidates with a realistic chance of getting elected...

-The Indian Express The police force needs to be freed from the stranglehold of the executive and given functional autonomy to enforce the rule of law. The Supreme Court’s directions can help achieve this transformation. The battle for police reforms has been going on for the last 22 years. The Supreme Court took 10 years to give a historic judgment in 2006. Since then it has been a struggle to get the...

-The Hindu Besides the missing informal sector, over-estimation of output growth also offers clues Are the latest employment estimates by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) factually correct? No. They are off the mark, and confined to the economy’s organised or formal sector, accounting at best for 15% of the workforce. Is there a paradox in high output growth rates and the marginal effect on employment? Probably not, if one acknowledges that GDP...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government on Wednesday raised the minimum support price for the common variety of paddy by what it described as a "historic" margin, seeking to address rural disquiet that the BJP has identified as one of its weaknesses in the run-up to key elections. However, a powerful lobby of farmers has termed it a "jumla" (an idiomatic expression that loosely translates as a hollow promise or...

-News18.com CCEA in its meeting on Wednesday approved an increase in MSP for summer crops, especially paddy and dal, as a move to fulfil its Budget promise and address farmers' concerns about the cost of crops. New Delhi: The Cabinet’s decision to increase minimum support price (MSP) for Kharif crops, intended to appease farmers, does not seem to have struck the right chord. CCEA in its meeting on Wednesday approved an increase...