-The Hindu India’s fundamental belief in democracy is often taken as a given, but it is instructive to understand the basis and strength of this belief. A new national survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies shows that in 2013, under half the country unequivocally preferred democracy as the best form of government in all cases; the outcome was the same when a similar survey was conducted in...

-Livemint.com Effective policy changes at the state-level are needed as this is where the problem and its solutions lie—and not in a National Agricultural Market There have been many attempts at alleviating the pain of the farmer in India, be it natural calamities or market risks, but nothing seems to work, and the problems of farmer distress and indebtedness continue to grow. For some time now, there has been a focus...

-Livemint.com The problem with the SECC is the absence of cross-tabulations showing the intersections between the seven deprivation sets The original intent of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), whose findings for rural India were made public in June, was to collect information on economic and caste identifiers for access to subsidized food under the National Food Security Act of 2013, and to define a priority set with higher access and...

-Livemint.com Lack of awareness and inaccessible healthcare have led to gross under-reporting of illnesses in India Mumbai: When one thinks of ill-health in India, one typically associates it with poor states with a history of poor health outcomes such as Madhya Pradesh or Jharkhand. So, you may be surprised to know that the highest proportion of people reporting illnesses last year was in the state of Kerala, widely considered to be an...

-The Indian Express Sources said all the 11 BJP members in the Joint Committee of Parliament on land bill on Monday moved amendments seeking to bring back social impact assessment and consent clause. In a major climbdown following sustained opposition pressure, the government on Monday agreed to drop most of its contentious amendments to the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, bringing back the crucial clauses related to consent of affected families...