-IPSNews.net UNITED NATIONS: When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics to Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University, the accolade had a significant relevance to the United Nations. The Academy bestowed the honour on the British-born Deaton, 69, primarily for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare.   Deaton’s research reflects some of the socio-economic issues on the U.N. agenda, including poverty alleviation, economic inequalities, consumption patterns, household...

-Hindustan Times Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday is addressing a convention on the 10th-anniversary celebrations of the Right to Information (RTI) Act which was brought in ‘to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority’. As the act completes a decade of existence, here is how (and why) it changed the way the government and public servants function: 1. What is RTI? A law that empowers every citizen to seek...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: RTI activists led by Aruna Roy will boycott PM Narendra Modi's inaugural speech at the Central Information Commission's annual convention on Friday to protest against the exclusion of several RTI users and activists from the event citing security concerns. Only a handful of activists including Nikhil Dey, Lokesh Batra, Venkatesh Nayak, Anjali Bhardwaj and Shekhar Singh have been invited for the convention. Traditionally, civil society representatives...

-DNA State policies favouring certain food crops have rendered pulses forbiddingly expensive and the common man is feeling the pinch The huge spurt in dal prices, touching Rs180 per kilogram and even Rs200 in some cities, has come as a dampener to the festive season, and raised questions about the policies of the government. For some years now, India has been resorting to huge imports of pulses to meet domestic demand...

-Livemint.com India unlikely to secure credible gains for its millions of poor farmers unless the govt stands firm against the US over its opposition to New Delhi’s demands in agriculture Geneva: India is unlikely to secure credible gains for its millions of poor farmers as part of the proposed outcomes of the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Nairobi ministerial meeting unless the Narendra Modi government stands firm against the US over its...