-Live Mint   Recent Maoist violence highlights the conflicts that centre around the model of India's economic growth   New Delhi: The deaths of nine people from violence related directly to the general election-occurring in and around polling booths-are an early warning to the next government that it must start thinking about how to balance economic growth with social justice and equity, experts said.   These deaths-mostly in areas hit by Maoist violence-highlight the conflicts that...

-Economic and Political Weekly   This paper quantifies the improvements in the public distribution system in rural India after 2004-05 using data from three rounds of surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey. It finds that Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh continue to be the leading performers, but early movers such as Odisha saw improvements in the functioning of the PDS between 2004-05 and 2009-10. In late movers such as Bihar and...

-The Hindu   If Gujarat is a model, then the real toppers in development indicators, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, must be supermodels In an earlier article published on this page ("The Gujarat Muddle," April 11, 2014), I pointed out that Gujarat's development achievements were hardly "model" class. This is pretty firm ground: the same point has been made by a long list of eminent economists. Yet confusion persists, so I decided to...

-Live Mint   Building toilets holds the key to reducing India's malnutrition burden Commenting on the Indian elections in his satire show, British humorist John Oliver remarked, "(Narendra) Modi has managed to inspire people with his populist platform including a pledge to put a toilet in every home. That's a bold move, coming out as pro-toilet." Oliver's wisecrack may have deliberately exaggerated Narendra Modi's pitch on toilets but the focus on sanitation has been...

-The Hindustan Times   New Delhi: The Capital's pollution watchdog has asked Bisleri's packaged drinking water manufacturing plant in west Delhi to shut shop immediately. The reason: The plant has been drawing 3.31 lakh litres of groundwater every day without requisite approval. This quantity of water is sufficient to meet the daily requirements of 2,500 people. Illegal drawing of groundwater is a big menace. Census 2011 reveals that Delhi has about 4.5 lakh...