-The Indian Express New India cannot view empowerment of women merely as economic resource. Last month, Niti Aayog released a report on state-level progress across various indicators under the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The comprehensive index score on gender equality (Goal 5) revealed that all Indian states, except Kerala and Sikkim, fall in the red zone, signifying low performance. Despite such worrisome findings in its own report, Niti Aayog’s almost simultaneously...

-The Hindu Braving Maoist call for boycott, villagers exercise franchise Karimnagar (Tenlangana): In spite of heightened naxalite threat, villagers, mostly dominated by tribal communities, have set an example in Telangana by recording over 90% polling in the Maoist stronghold villages in the interior Mahadevpur, Kataram and Mahamutharam mandals adjoining the Chhattisgarh in the erstwhile Karimnagar district, now in Jayashankar-Bhupalapalli district. Braving the Maoist call for poll boycott, people formed serpentine queues to exercise...

-The Telegraph Distressed farmers marching for 10 days ran into water cannons and tear gas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border Distressed farmers marching for 10 days ran into water cannons and teargas on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Tuesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi who taught the world the power of non-violence and Lal Bahadur Shastri who immortalised the “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” slogan. The...

-Livemint.com Ecologist Madhav Gadgil, whose report on Western Ghats was rejected by the Kerala government, on what caused the Kerala floods and how the rebuilding process should be carried out Ernakulam (Kerala): Submitted seven years ago on 31 August 2011, ecologist Madhav Gadgil’s report on the biodiverse Western Ghats—a portion of which falls in Kerala—had warned that the combination of massive ecological destruction and extreme weather events trigger disaster. His words proved...

-The Indian Express The data in India is flawed, marked by both under- and over-reporting. The question is not whether India’s women are safe, but whether they are free Very rarely does data become a political hot-button issue in India, dominating the shouty nightly news debates and the daily Twitter sniping. Earlier this month, it was about data on the status of women, following an international survey that found India to be...