-GovernanceNow.com Banning cattle slaughter, like demonetisation, may deliver political gains but will hit the rural economy hard More than a century ago, a team of officials from Brazil toured some villages of Kheda district, in central Gujarat. They had come to procure breeding bulls of the famous Kankreji breed, notes Bhailal Patel, a charismatic institution-builder who was also the first leader of opposition in Gujarat assembly, in his memoirs. It was of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a major victory for the Narendra Modi government that is set on making Aadhaar compulsory for several kinds of transactions, the Supreme Court upheld on Friday the law making the UID number a must for filing income tax returns and its linkage to PAN card. In what could cheer up the government, which faced anxious times while defending validity of Section 139AA of the Income...

-The Hindu Liberalisation has eroded the institutional capacity to train young people who might pursue liberal values The other day, a student asked me what exactly the word ‘liberal’ mean. She wanted to know whether ‘liberalisation’ promotes ‘liberal’ values. She had noticed that institutions of higher education, which are supposed to promote liberal values, were finding it difficult to resist ideological and commercial pressures triggered by the process of economic liberalisation. So,...

-Hindustan Times The Karnataka govt declared that only farmers who have a fodder ration booklet will be given subsidised fodder, a lifeline for the dairy farmers battling a crippling shortage in cattle food. Kolar: In the hinterlands of Karnataka that is battling a third successive drought year and increasingly parched lands, farmers have a new worry: Aadhaar. The state government has declared that only farmers who have a fodder ration booklet will be...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Amid a growing debate over issue of taxing farm income, eminent agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan on Saturday expressed his views against such tax and said other methods could be explored to tax rich farmers with multiple sources of the income. "I do not agree with tax on agriculture income since agriculture is the major source of livelihood for over 50% of our population. It is...