-Frontline   Political parties flush with funds provided by corporate houses are winning over journalists, and some news organisations are creating packages for election coverage, making the phenomenon of ‘paid news' all pervasive. THE credibility of journalism and journalists has been greatly undermined by the scourge of cash for coverage, a much-abhorred sickness in the profession worldwide. News space on television, radio and newsprint is compromised with impunity with blatant advertising parading...

-The Indian Express   The Gujarat model continues to generate more heat than light. This is in response to Professor Yoginder K. Alagh's article, ‘Posture-nomics' (IE, May 7), wherein he says, "Getting back to agriculture, the 10 per cent growth rate figure was the result of a paid-for study commissioned by the government of Gujarat and conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, to which [Ashok] Gulati was affiliated. The finding was...

-The Indian Express   MGNREGA is beset with failures of planning, execution, monitoring and accountability. This election season, we have seen the BJP seeking the people's mandate on the slogan "sab ka saath, sab ka vikas". The Congress harps primarily on a "we gave you" list. The first in this list is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). The 11th Five Year Plan recognised that 30 crore people lived below the...

-The Hindu   So far, the electoral promises of allocation of six per cent of GDP to education have remained as pious wishes Election manifestoes over decades have rhetorically spoken of six per cent of GDP or more to education and this election has been no exception; the actual spending on education is only around three per cent. Not surprisingly, school infrastructure and teaching personnel are inadequate and of poor quality while the dropout...

-Down to Earth NTFPS-EP is a network working with adivasis on ecosystem conservation, advocacy and livelihoods When we shift the focus from the timber a forest is usually valued for to the non-timber products it offers, a very different world opens up. Wild fruit, honey, gums and resin, fish and crab, fibre and flowers, birds' eggs and bush meat, and medicinal barks are only some of the products that a forest may...