-The Indian Express Government’s insistence on acquisition is rooted in a rush to impose the Gujarat model on the rest of India. The development agenda of the Narendra Modi government implies industrialisation. The BJP’s 2014 mandate was indeed for job creation. The “neo-middle class”, which Modi defined when he was CM of Gujarat as made up of aspiring city dwellers who have just emerged from poverty, supported him more widely than the...

-The Hindu Over 5,000 violations pertains to distracting ‘part-screen’ and ‘scrolling’ ads The Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC) of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has reported 13,000 instances of violations of regulatory norms by television channels in 2013-14. These violations came to light after Guntur-based Edara Gopi Chand, an activist with Media-Watch India, waged a three-year battle to expose the poor regulation of content on India’s TV channels. Using the RTI Act, Mr....

-Economic and Political Weekly The RTI is virtually being strangled to death by deliberate delays in appointments. If you find a law uncomfortable, even one that you supported and passed, what should you do? Repealing it would not be politically smart; amending or diluting it will give ammunition to your critics. So the best strategy is to strangulate it, softly and steadily, until it is rendered lifeless and ineffectual. Something like this...

-Hindustan Times Good pre-monsoon showers— which have been either surplus or normal in nearly half of the country— have come as a boost for a crisis-ridden farm sector, bolstering prospects of sowing and easing some of the government’s worries.   The showers, aided by seasonal storms, have been sufficient to meet farmers’ requirements for planting key summer crops, prompting millions to head out to fields across states.   The rains have replenished 81 “nationally...

-Livemint.com The strike that was announced on Friday is to protest what unions called the anti-labour policies of the BJP-led ruling coalition New Delhi: Eleven trade unions plan to go on strike on 26 May, the first anniversary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, to protest what they called the anti-labour policies of the ruling coalition. The strike was announced on Friday as three ministers met national...