-The Times of India Mumbai: The 16th Lok Sabha may have the highest number of women that the Lower House has ever had, but India has slipped from a rank of 117 among 188 countries in 2014 to 144 among 191 countries as on February 1, 2016, in terms of the proportion of women in Parliament. Barely 12% of MPs in the Lok Sabha are women and the figure stands at 12.8%...

-The Hindu A recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan, published in the Economic and Political Weekly, provides insights into how Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s online image was constructed and evolved over time. By analysing data from @narendramodi Twitter handle — official account of Mr. Modi — researchers found that a combination of carefully crafted tweets and strategic follow-backs to other Twitter accounts helped Modi build a powerful online...

-The Hindu The ruling party is doing its best to establish that being critical of its government is tantamount to being anti-national. It is not just the inconvenient person or collective being intimidated; the Constitution is under attack. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” — George Orwell The controlled voice of Ravish Kumar on a blackened screen and his stark report on NDTV India on February 19...

-AP/Bloomberg Whether Modi can raise farmer incomes without stoking inflation may determine if his economic vision is any different from the previous Congress-led govt New Delhi: Shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept to power in 2014, his first economic plan promised modern cities, manufacturing corridors and bullet trains to aspirational Indians yearning to join a ‘neo middle class.’ This week his latest budget struck a much different tone, listing a slew...

-Livemint.com A growth-first approach may work in the short-term, but India needs to prioritize sustainability simultaneously The Union Budget 2016-17, seeking to “transform India”, has been hailed for its emphasis on agricultural growth and sustainability. Symbolically, the finance minister put “agriculture and farmers’ welfare” first in his nine-point agenda. The words “agriculture” and “farmer” found 20 and 32 mentions, respectively, in the budget speech, the highest in the last decade. On the...