-The Hindu The trajectory of the Narendra Modi government's education policy has been "disappointing and makes one apprehensive," said Dr. Devesh Kapur, Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on human capital, diaspora and political and economic change in developing countries. "It makes me apprehensive. I don't see any fundamental change in a view - common to our Left and...

-The Hindu Are differences within the middle class, in income, education, and cultural and social capital, so wide as to render moot any ideological or behavioural coherence to this group? The rapid growth of the Indian economy over the past three decades has led to a substantial expansion of India's "middle class". This has triggered a robust debate over who in India actually belongs to the "middle class," its size, composition, and...

-The Hindu Business Line The number of people commuting between rural and urban areas and across geographies has risen dramatically In the last couple of decades, the number of people commuting between rural and urban areas on a daily basis has seen an explosive growth. This includes unskilled workers without a fixed place of work. According to the National Sample Survey Organisation, between 1993-94 and 2009-10, India saw a nearly fourfold increase (from...

-The Hindu   The central policy challenge for the new government is how to sustain social gains while ensuring that Dalits can participate more meaningfully in the economy, by sharing in the fruits of economic growth while contributing as well In his address to the nation on Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his intention to "take a solemn pledge of working for... the welfare of the poor, oppressed, Dalits, the exploited...

-Live Mint   Despite its importance, reform of India's legal institutions has been seen as a ‘second order' issue India is a young nation long ruled by old laws-its police, for example, are governed by such colonial-era statutes as the Police Act of 1861, which predates independence by nearly a century. And its expanding economy requires forward-looking regulatory mechanisms to foster markets while curbing crony capitalism. India is also a nation that must...