-Al Jazeera Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to narrow the gap between Indian elites and the rest of the population India has experienced a significant economic growth spurt in recent decades. After seeing annual growth of 3 percent in the years after independence in 1947, the rate began to double, reaching a rate of around 6 percent per year after 1980. However, the distribution of growth proceeds has been very uneven...

-The Indian Express The objective is to ensure that a standard minimum wage rate exists for all kinds of occupations. The government is seeking to significantly boost incomes of the country’s lowest paid workers by substantially raising the minimum wages payable to them, mandating payments through formal banking channels and ensuring they get social security benefits like provident fund and medical insurance. Fresh amendments are being readied to incorporate these changes to...

-The Hindu Business Line Discussions are on with insurance companies: official New Delhi: The government is considering the launch of a universal health insurance product, a government official said, adding that the Department of Financial Services has already held discussions with insurance companies for the launch of such a product. The government is also considering ways to incentivise providers to encourage good health rather than hospitalisation. “So far, health schemes are pushing for hospitalisation...

-Economic and Political Weekly While insufficient sanitation facilities often get represented in statistics and are reported in the literature on urban infrastructure planning and contested urban spaces, what is often left out is the everyday practice and experience of going to dysfunctional toilets, particularly by women. By analysing the practices and problems associated with toilet use from a phenomenological perspective, this article aims to situate the issue in the everyday lives...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmers' unions and political parties have been demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan minimum support price (cost plus 50%) to address agrarian crisis and farmers' distress. But they have not raised demands for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which have the potential to provide lasting solutions. Ranjit Singh Ghuman (ghumanrs@yahoo.co.uk) is a Nehru SAIL Chair Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and...