-The Hindu Business Line ‘GDP growth rates for 2004-11 were bound to come down’ New Delhi: “You can slice and dice the data anyway you want, but India’s GDP growth rates between 2004 and 2011 were bound to come down in the backcasting computation effort,” said TCA Anant, former Chief Statistician of India. When the new base year of 2011-12 came out, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) had documented and recognised that the...

-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...

-The Hindu The Electoral Bond Scheme inhibits the citizen’s capacity to meaningfully participate in political and public life Early this year the government introduced an Electoral Bond Scheme purportedly with a view to cleansing the prevailing culture of political sponsorship. But the programme’s failings have been so blindingly obvious, and its consequences so utterly devastating to rectitude and transparency in government, that even O.P. Rawat, who just retired Chief Election Commissioner, thought...

-The Hindu Behind lynching lies the vicious idea that goodness is possessed by one group alone and all others who do not have it or stray from it are enemies to be conquered Group violence unleashed upon an alleged transgressor is always spurred by a complex interplay of interest, prejudice and power. The Bulandshahr lynchings of a police officer and a youth were not spontaneous reactions to grave wrongdoing by a hastily...

-The Hindu Business Line The BJP faces its toughest battle in Rajasthan, where rural agrarian distress is more acute than elsewhere It has been a long summer for Anirudh Meena. The farmer from Kota in Rajasthan is still waiting for the government to financially compensate his brother Hukumchand Meena’s family. A garlic farmer, Humukchand took his life in May, after the price of the bulb came crashing down, leading to heavy financial...