-The Hindu Recent Census data appear to inadequately reflect India’s linguistic composition, and are inconsistent with global ideas The story, “Death of Jagmohan, the Elephant”, by Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi, is about the death of an elephant. For a reader, the story may appear to be about a rather “big death”, but what the writer wanted to say was that there are also many “small deaths”. They include the deaths of Dalits...

-CaravanMagazine.in The economist Jean Drèze’s book, Sense and Solidarity, published in late 2017, deals with the impact of Aadhaar on social-welfare programmes, such as the National Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among other things. Drèze was a member of the United Progressive Alliance government’s advisory council, which designed the NFSA and MGNREGS. He co-authored some of the essays in this book with colleagues and...

-Livemint.com Rising input costs and lack of remunerative prices have turned the terms of trade against the Indian farmer While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) managed to retain its stronghold of Gujarat in the recent state assembly elections, it conceded significant ground to the Congress in rural and semi-rural constituencies. The results bring to the fore the problem of rural discontent, as farmers intensify their protests against non-remunerative prices for their produce...

-The Hindu The political scientist on the danger to India’s checks and balances, and the perils of the democratisation of mediocrity in universities Professor of political science and a holder of the Madan Lal Sobti Chair, Devesh Kapur has been director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India at University of Pennsylvania since 2006. Mr. Kapur, who recently co-edited Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design, says our public universities...

-IANS Crimes from murders to rapes to dacoities to Caste Conflicts and communal tensions Lucknow: Two months is not a long time in politics to fall from grace, especially when a landslide of public support has propelled you to power. But in Uttar Pradesh, the honeymoon period of the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government seems to have been spiked by a series of incidents of heinous crimes and law and order...