A recent one-liner about the achievement of the present Central government goes like this: bovine has become ‘divine’ during the NDA’s rule. But why do such jokes originate? Media reports suggest that unprecedented aggression has taken place during the recent months in the name of the peaceful looking animal – cow. Mob lynching and killings by fringe groups have been reported from various parts of the country, especially targeting Muslims and...

-Hindustan Times The RTI Act of 2005 made the government more accountable. But a new set of proposed rules may weaken the law and make it difficult and risky for people to access information In 2015, activist Lokesh Batra filed a Right To Information (RTI) application with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) seeking details about the appointment of the next Chief Information Commissioner (CIC). But the DoPT refused to...

-The Hindu Fundamental problems of crop and regional bias of MSP policy, govt. procurement and access to institutional credit need to be addressed. Agricultural distress is often viewed as a short-term phenomenon in which farmers look for support from various quarters on account of being unable to get a gainful return due to price crash, poor marketing facilities, rising credit burden, increasing cost of inputs and frequent occurrence of natural calamities. A...

-The Indian Express Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar says Maharashtra is a huge state and there are ways to raise the funds Mumbai: The Maharashtra government will have to provide Rs 1.14 lakh crore to write off the entire loan burden of all 1.36 crore farmers in Maharashtra, stoking concerns given the state’s debt burden of Rs 4 lakh crore. Highly placed sources said the state budget for 2017-18 was Rs 2.57 lakh...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India is no longer the fastest-growing major economy in the world: it has lost its bragging rights to China. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) today put out its provisional estimates on national income that showed real GDP growth had tumbled to 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter (January-March). That is considerably slower than the 6.9 per cent growth that the resurgent Chinese economy racked up during the same...