-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government has strongly favoured retention of the capital punishment with the two government-appointed nominees submitting their dissent notes on the Law Commission's recommendation on phased abolition of death penalty. The panel, in its 242-page report submitted to the government and the Supreme Court on Monday, recommended abolition of death penalty for all crimes other than terrorism-related offences and waging war against the country. Releasing...

Two recent reports show that this social sector scheme has had a causal impact in improving lives, especially for women and children Fourteen million people escaped falling into poverty under the world’s largest anti-poverty programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In 10 years of its existence, the scheme reduced poverty by 32 per cent. Recent data also shows that more women are drawing cash incomes, more children...

-Business Standard Mobile commerce venture AgroStar supplies seeds and fertiliser to farmers. As the company expands, delivery will be a challenge Navinbhai Karsanbhai Patel, a farmer from Navanagar in Gujarat, used to have a hard time securing quality inputs for his four-acre farm. That was before he got to know about AgroStar's offerings. His association with the company, now 18 months old, has resulted in 300 missed calls to the helpline number...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The housing ministry has identified 305 cities and towns across nine states to start building houses for the poor in urban areas. The government has set the target to provide houses to two crore families belonging to the economically weaker section (EWS) in urban areas by 2022. The states that are likely to gain are Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, J&K, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana....

-The Hindu Across the country, unless adequate jobs are created for the large labour force, the frustration of the youth is not likely to be contained. In Gujarat, the Patels or Patidars, who constitute about 15 per cent of the State’s population, are an economically and politically dominant upper caste. As successful farmers, as small and big industrialists, as traders as well as non-resident Gujaratis, spread practically all over the world, they...