-The Indian Express Basheer’s energy shines through in his multi-dimensional academic career, which was marked by controversies and pathbreaking achievements. Inhabiting dualities defined Shamnad Basheer. Nicola Lacey, biographer of the eminent legal philosopher H L A Hart, wrote that Hart was surely an insider to Oxford philosophy, but always saw himself on the margins. Memories of Basheer kindle something similar: Inspiring students, intervening socially, recognised publicly and yet, secluded and distant....

  A recent press release by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) shows that the declared minimum support price (MSP) for most kharif crops to be marketed in 2019-20 is at least 50 percent above the cost of production. The official information related to the newly declared MSP, which came two days ahead of the Union Budget presentation, gives the impression that the newly re-elected NDA government has kept its promise...

--The Indian Express PMGSY was rolled out in 2000 to provide access to all-weather roads in 1.78 lakh rural habitations across the country. New Delhi: A recent independent World Bank assessment of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) rural roads programme meant to establish ‘farm to market connectivity’ shows that the PMGSY roads, in fact, “triggered a shift from farm to non-farm employment” in the habitations studied between 2009 and...

-The Hindu It is imperative to promote community-based care rather than relying only on hospital services The deaths of 154 children in Bihar due to acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) has laid bare the precarious capacity of the State’s healthcare apparatus to handle outbreaks. AES has been linked to two factors: litchi consumption by starving children and a long, ongoing heat wave. As promises of bolstering the health infrastructure are being made, it...

-Scroll.in They lost their money after Delhi’s municipal corporation was split into three districts in 2013. Kamru Jamaal’s life would be easier if he got the monthly pension of Rs 1,000 that New Delhi’s municipal corporations are supposed to pay their poor senior citizens. At 73, he makes a living driving a cycle-rickshaw on the streets of North Delhi’s Kingsway Camp area. “I can’t remember how long I haven’t been paid a pension,”...