-The Telegraph The impact the beast called social media can really have on the ensuing general elections Sometime in the late 2000s, a young software engineer who voluntarily ran social media propaganda for the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party got an opportunity to attend a BJP social media meet in Bangalore. Among the people who saw this young man speak there was the then Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi....

-The Indian Express Launched on September 23, PMJAY is the tertiary care arm of the NDA government’s flagship health programme Ayushman Bharat. On the day Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee released the party’s manifesto with a focus on national issues such as demonetisation, Kashmir and GST, the state government returned the money received from the Centre for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), touted as...

-Frontline.in The cash transfer schemes the Narendra Modi government and several State governments have announced to woo the peasantry ahead of the election, like the loan waivers, short-change farmers because they avoid the vital issue of remunerative prices for farm produce. In a sudden flurry of new-found concern for the long-suffering Indian peasant, parties across the political spectrum are desperately trying to woo this section of society. In fact, ever since...

-The Indian Express Despite having some ability to benefit a section of the economically worse off, the researchers say, it is mostly a “political stunt” and limited in its ability to tackle income inequality. New Delhi: The Congress’ proposal of Nyay, a monthly payout of Rs 6,000 to the poorest 20 per cent, can be best served with “more progressive taxation,” which could include a wealth tax on the rich, says...

-Scroll.in Landless farmers are left out of Telangana’s Rythu Bandhu, but nominally included in Odisha’s Kalia. For two decades, Chinthanna Linganna, 55, has cultivated agricultural land leased from others in Talamadugu village in Telangana’s Adilabad district. He currently rents 20 acres of land to grow cotton. Since May, the people who own this land have received cheques of up to Rs 1.6 lakh from the state government as agricultural investment support. Linganna...