-The Indian Express In both the methodologies, the home-seekers had the same credentials but for their names that indicated their caste and religion. A study on discrimination in urban housing rental preferences, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Economic and Political Weekly, shows high levels of exclusion of Dalits and Muslims in the five metropolitan areas of NCR. The team of researchers, led by Prof S K Thorat, chairman of...

-Hindustan Times Rohtak: The meteorological (Met) department's prediction of below-average rainfall this year between June and September has raised the concern among paddy growers in the state, who are already reeling under crop losses due to the unseasonal rainfall, which has damaged the rabi crops. The prediction of poor rainfall will not only affect the farmers, but also rice production in the state, as according to the figures given by the state...

-Hindustan Times Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s decision to use his photograph in newspaper advertisements is tantamount to “an open contempt” of the Supreme Court’s ban on using pictures of CMs in government publicity, legal experts say. Yadav’s photograph appeared recently in full-page newspaper advertisements highlighting an agreement to construct an international cricket stadium in Lucknow. A Uttar Pradesh government ad with Akhilesh Yadav that appeared in a newspaper on Friday. On May...

-Hindustan Times Policy makers have no control over fickle weather whims and complex forecasts. Regardless of the eventual course and quality of summer rains brought on by drafts of breeze that stream 8,000 km from the southern Pacific, the early predictions did give an early heads up of what was likely in the next few months. Yet, every drought year, India’s response to deal with scanty summer rains has been knee-jerk, marked...

-Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to provide millions of farmers with income insurance linked to crop prices, officials say, but it may not do much to ease rural distress, with small farmers standing to benefit little and likely to be put off by bureaucracy. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which swept to office a year ago, hopes to consolidate its power in local elections over the next two years, but anger...