-The Indian Express De-listing of 255 parties by the EC has thrown up data on distribution of India’s minor political outfits and the nature of political entrepreneurship in the country. On December 23, The Indian Express began reporting a multi-part series on 255 political parties that had been de-listed by the Election Commission after it found that none of these had put up a candidate for any Vidhan Sabha or Lok...

-TheWire.in New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that politicians cannot seek votes on the grounds of caste, creed or religion. The landmark judgment came while the court revisited a judgment from 1995 that equated Hindutva with Hinduism and called it a “way of life” and said a candidate was not necessarily violating the law if votes were sought on this plank. Several petitions filed over the years have challenged that verdict....

-The Indian Express For farmers, the main source of their woes is a bumper crop. If 2015 was the year of arhar (pigeon-pea) – retail prices of the milled dal scaled Rs 180-200 per kg levels in October and contributed hugely to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s defeat in the Bihar Assembly polls – 2016 is set to close with the humble legume virtually disappearing from the public radar. The new crop, which has...

-The Hindu No absentee voting rights for domestic migrants till foolproof technology in place, says Commission Noting that “there is an emergent need to link Aadhaar with the electoral details of voters”, the Election Commission of India has given a mixed response to the Supreme Court on providing absentee voting rights, like electronic voting and proxy voting, to over 300 million domestic migrants in the country, saying there is no foolproof mechanism...

-Livemint.com Economist Esther Duflo on demonetisation impact, role of randomized control trials in policymaking, low priority assigned to health and education in India New Delhi: India’s demonetisation of high-value currency notes is a dramatic example of a policy announcement made without any serious thought given to implementation, said Esther Duflo, one of the leading development economists of the world and a professor at the department of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of...