-The Hindu We need to rethink social safety nets in India’s growing economy so that they can also focus on the accidents of life rather than solely on the accidents of birth. Sometimes the grand narratives of the Left and the Right do not seem to have any relationship with the lived experiences of ordinary Indians. For the past two decades, the Left has tried to expand social welfare programmes for the...

-The Hindu The amendments to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, passed by Parliament recently, demonstrate a lack of national commitment to abolishing all forms of child labour. Instead of attempting an overhaul of legislation that has proved ineffective in curbing the phenomenon, Parliament has allowed children up to the age of 14 to be employed in ‘family enterprises’, and created a new category of ‘adolescents’ (the 14-18 age...

-The Indian Express The incentive structure, currently skewed in favour of rice and wheat, needs to become crop-neutral High prices of pulses are upsetting the food budget of many poor families. Soaring retail prices of dals — urad at Rs. 170/kg, tur/arhar at Rs160/kg, gram/chickpea at Rs 127/kg, moong at Rs 111/kg and masoor at Rs 100/kg — have made dal a luxury for the dal-bhaat and dal-roti eating population. But not...

-The Indian Express Share of MusLIMs in official 3.7 lakh ‘beggar’ population is disproportionately larger than the community’s share in country’s population, show Census data. Mumbai: MusLIMs make up 14.23% of India’s population. They are, however, nearly 25% of the 3.7 lakh individuals who have been listed as beggars by the Government of India. Activists claim that the data — released last month — on the religious orientation of those deemed ‘non workers’...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Almost a quarter of India’s 370,000 beggars are MusLIMs, newly released data from the 2011 Census show, reinforcing that the community still lags behind on most counts despite the country’s rapid economic growth. MusLIMs, the largest minority who make up 14.2% of India’s 1.25-billion population, come out pretty much at the bottom of most socio-economic indices, even a decade after a high-level government probe into their historical disadvantages...