-The Telegraph Citizens’ participation in policy-making is an important factor in assessing the quality of democracy Within five days of the announcement of Agnipath, the scheme had been amended 10 times, raising the larger question concerning consultation in policy-making. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government has taken a number of policy decisions without public consultation — from demonetisation, which saw 60 changes in 43 days, to GST, which has been...

-The Hindu Allow more flexibility at the ground level, says internal study commissioned by the Ministry of Rural Development An internal study commissioned by the Ministry of Rural Development has argued for decentralisation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), allowing for more “flexibility” at the ground level.  The Ministry recently made public the report of the sixth Common Review Mission which surveyed seven States — Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh,...

-The Hindu A recent survey on governance and development in the State brings out the importance of the economic plight of the people When Narendra Modi entered the national political arena in 2013-14, he was portrayed as the mascot of the Gujarat model of development. Now, nearly a decade later, do memories of that model resonate with the Gujarati voter? As Assembly elections approach, do the voters of Gujarat still take pride...

-The Hindu While Supreme Court has voiced concerns over their increasing use to prove a case, women’s rights activists deem the technology an empowering tool Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA tests occupy a grey area in the quest for justice, vacillating between the dangers of slipping into self-incrimination and encroachment of individual privacy and the ‘eminent need’ to unearth the truth, be in the form of evidence in a criminal case, a claim...

-The Hindu Only 13% “strongly trusted” private TV news channels compared to 31% who said so about newspapers Indian news consumers’ trust in private TV news channels is relatively much lower than their belief in newspapers and yet television continues to be the dominant news source. Notably, their trust in online news websites is lower than even the private channels, while the former is the third preferred source for accessing news after...