-Economic and Political Weekly While insufficient sanitation facilities often get represented in statistics and are reported in the literature on urban infrastructure planning and contested urban spaces, what is often left out is the everyday practice and experience of going to dysfunctional toilets, particularly by women. By analysing the practices and problems associated with toilet use from a phenomenological perspective, this article aims to situate the issue in the everyday lives...

-Livemint.com Farmers’ welfare is a multi-dimensional issue, with the farm ministry playing a small but significant role Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to rename the ministry of agriculture to ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare may be symbolic, but is at the least a recognition of the stress in rural economy. The stress, particularly in the farming sector, is now all too obvious with the increase in suicides being reported in many...

-The Times of India PUNE: Tiger deaths persisted in the country despite the Union and state governments' efforts towards conservation. The country lost close to 41 tigers from January until August 9 this year, similar to the count in the same period in 2014, reveals fresh data from National Tiger Conservation Authority and TRAFFIC-India, the wildlife trade monitoring network. The data further revealed that tigers are dying not just from natural causes, but...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Union environment ministry, which generally avoids sharing details of air pollution-linked deaths, made an exception on Thursday when it said in Parliament that more than 35,000 people had died due to acute respiratory infections (ARI) across India in close to 10 years. More than 2.6 crore cases were reported every year during the period. Although international studies have attributed far more deaths to air pollution in...

-Economic and Political Weekly There are basic methodological and conceptual problems with recent research that ends up arguing that private school education is more effective than public education. Such findings have obvious policy implications but it is critical that research that informs policy is based on a correct reading of facts, keeping the larger vision of education in mind. Recent research into the cost effectiveness of public education vis-à-vis private education concludes...