-The Hindu Business Line Clientelism - tying benefits to political choices - cannot work because voting preferences cannot be ascertained. Do parties and their local agents link access to government services and benefits from government welfare schemes to how voters vote, or are expected to vote? This political strategy, which social scientists refer to as clientelism, depends on a massive investment in local leaders who collect information on voters' party preferences, vote choices...

-The Times of India VARANASI: In an extremely cold and shivering night, a man with torn clothes was eating something picked up from a dustbin at platform number 4 of Charbagh railway station of Lucknow. Some passenger may have thrown the leftover eatable. But, finding it insufficient to satiate his hunger the man started looking for some more stuff in other dustbins at the platform. When this correspondent tried to interact with...

-The Pioneer Bhubaneswar: Despite numerous policies and amendment in Hindu Succession Act, 2005 that provides inheritance rights to the Indian women on their parental agricultural land, the law has remained a non-starter with just 10 per cent of women having been able to own land in the country. Aimed at elevating the land rights issue of rural women, Landesa in partnership with Oxfam India organised a State level media workshop titled, ‘A...

-The Hindu Business Line Malnutrition, lack of clean water and prevalence of poor sanitation are the main causes of high child mortality in India. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) was released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Welt Hunger Hilfe (WHH) recently. According to the GHI, the world has made some progress in reducing hunger since the early 1990s and the millennium development goal of halving the share of...

-The Business Standard Mumbai: The Ministry of Agriculture proposes drastic reduction in the market fee and commission charges paid in the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee ( APMC) markets. To this effect, it also suggest abolishing the present system of licensing of traders / commission agents by substituting it with system of registration. Accordingly, there will be a single unified registration for the main market and collection...