-Business Standard The efficacy of farm debt waivers is ambiguous, but it has proved to be a potent potent weapon in the run-up to elections With elections round the corner in agrarian states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, his party’s Punjab chief ministerial candidate Amarinder Singh and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal are trying to woo farmers of the two states with promises of farm...

-The Indian Express PDS has improved in the state, but it’s still not up to the mark. Recent media reports suggest that the public distribution system (PDS) in West Bengal is now “doing enormously well” — as one headline put it. Some also claim that this has contributed to the victory of the Trinamool Congress in the latest assembly elections. Since we were involved in the survey cited in these reports, we...

-PTI Supreme Court today directed the Centre to do away with sterilisation camps within three years and strengthen the primary healthcare centre system, saying "it is time that women and men are treated with respect and dignity and not as mere statistics in the sterilisation programme". The verdict was delivered when the court was dealing with a PIL which had brought to light the mismanagement of sterilisation camps which had led to the...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The government has refused to divulge information about riot control weapons and ammunition used to disperse protesters, saying this was “sensitive defence information” and making it public could jeopardise the country’s security. A Delhi-based rights activist Venkatesh Nayak had filed a right to information (RTI) request asking the Ordnance Factory Board for details on the sale of weapons and ammunition, particularly pellet shotguns that have injured thousands of...

-The Indian Express Again, going by NSSO data, while 11.9 per cent of an average Indian agricultural household’s monthly income comes from “farming of animals”, it is well over 24 per cent for Gujarat. Gujarat has a relatively low per agricultural household debt of Rs 38,100, as against the all-India average of Rs 47,000, according to the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO) data for 2012-13. Also, 79.2 per cent of the state’s...