-The Hindu Business Line A low turnout at the famous Puskhar fair highlights the declining interest in the once-popular profession of camel herding The Pushkar Fair, held annually in Rajasthan’s Ajmer, is known as one of the world’s largest cattle fairs. It also celebrates the age-old traditions of the pastoralist camel-herding Raika tribe. On November 4-12, more than 1,000 of the community’s camel herders arrived with their livestock at the fair. They...

-DNA The unaddressed question is what happens when the VVPAT count doesn’t match the EVM count The general elections 2019 is moving towards closure, with six out of seven phases already over. All eyes are now on the counting. It is not surprising that the issue of counting of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) has become hot once again. The decision to introduce VVPATs as a measure to make electronic voting machines...

-Firstpost.com Rajasthan’s relationship with summer is not a pleasant one. The shortage of water in the region only adds to the misery of the people. Even before the onset of summer, over 5,000 villages in nine districts in Rajasthan — Barmer, Churu, Pali, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jalore, Jodhpur, Hanumangarh and Nagaur were declared ‘drought-affected’ by the state government. The drought in this area affects the economy of the region as employment options...

-The Hindu With farm distress becoming a major electoral issue in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Vikas Pathak visits two pockets of rural India, Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh and Jodhpur district in Rajasthan, and finds that the political instincts of the rural voter are not necessarily rooted in agriculture. A few farmers sit huddled near a statue of Sardar Patel at Balaguda village in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh pouring out...

-TheWire.in Former CEC S.Y. Quraishi, in whose term paper audits for EVM machines were tested and introduced, questions the failure of the system in the recent by-polls despite all-weather tests. New Delhi: The Election Commission on Friday declared that the reason behind the malfunctioning of a large number of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines during the recently held by-elections to the Kairana and Bhandara-Gondiya parliamentary constituencies was due to the...