-Hindustan Times Just how many people in India are poor? The question remains unanswered with yet another government panel failing to define an official “poverty line”. After a year and half of work , a 16-member task force headed by NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya has failed to reach a consensus and suggested to the government that another panel of specialists be asked to do the job. HT has a copy of...

-TheWire.in Finding a time period &NDAsh; keeping in mind exam schedules, agricultural cycles, festivals and public holidays &NDAsh; when elections can be held throughout the country may prove to be difficult. In a television interview recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed that holding elections simultaneously for the parliament and the state assemblies needs to be seriously considered. It would save the country from the permanent electoral cycle, party politics and polarising issues...

-TheWire.in Police across the country continue to use the law to book people for making offensive comments on social media, blissfully unaware of its deletion from the IT Act. Last November, police in Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh arrested 25-year-old Sattar Khan for allegedly making offensive remarks about the RSS chief on social media. Reacting to pressure from angry protestors, the police filed a criminal case against Khan. But months later, the police were...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Academic degrees and certificates are set to go digital. Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar today revived a UPA initiative aimed at setting up a national academic depository to provide degrees and diplomas in a digital format. Javadekar, however, dressed up the initiative as a brainchild of the NDA government, saying the depository was a step towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India vision. Unlike the UPA's decision...

-NDTV Sikkim, the small north eastern hill state, is the cleanest in India, with Kerala coming in a close second, according to a Swachhta (cleanliness) survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on the condition of sanitation in rural areas of 26 states. Chhattisgarh and neighbouring Jharkhand placed last in the survey, which was carried out last year. “A survey on Swachhta status was conducted by NSSO during May-June 2015 covering...