-The Hindu Providing people with a modest basic income instead of subsidies would save public revenue With oil prices falling, it was perhaps a good time to fade out fuel subsidies. All subsidies are inefficient and distortionary, and most are regressive. The same could be said of costly public works schemes as well. By contrast, the debate on direct benefit transfers has moved into a more sensible phase, with the posturing criticism of...

-The Hindu The deaths of Chaiti Bai and other women after a botched tubectomy in Chhattisgarh are an opportunity to reflect on the problems India faces in the pursuit of modernity and global status, especially in health and education A sudden death always has great pedagogical value. The death of Chaiti Bai, a Baiga tribal woman, following a botched tubectomy at a mass sterilisation camp in Chhattisgarh recently, can improve our perspective...

-The Indian Express Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly promised India "maximum governance". But to get there, the high costs and ineffectiveness of frontline service providers need to be addressed. Take elementary school teachers, for instance. "Complete rest in comfortable conditions" is the description a rather candid elementary education cluster resource centre coordinator (CRCC) in Bihar gave his own job. And it's not just him, it is also how the CRCC describes...

-The Hindu Dharmapuri (Tamil Nadu): An emaciated Kumudha looks the very symbol of women who have no reproductive agency or bodily rights, one of the many reasons for the neonatal deaths that occurred at the government hospital here last weekend. A week after losing her two-day-old son to preterm-low birth weight complications, Kumudha just returned home after administration of intravenous fluids at the primary health centre at Palayamapudur, some six km from...

-The Hindu "Employers, education providers, and youth live in parallel universes" India has a larger proportion of youth population than the rest of the world, according to the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) State of the World's Population Report, released on Tuesday said. "Today's record 1.8 billion young people present an enormous opportunity to transform the future," UNFPA Executive Director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehim, said in a statement. "Young people are the innovators, creators,...