-Business Standard Data from past elections suggest that the saffron party gets fewer voters from the poor From postponing a hike in railway fare to promising doubled farmers' income in the next five years, from the prime minister holding a number of farmers' rallies to renewed focus on augmenting rural growth and enhancing allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in the Union Budget, the National Democratic Alliance government...

-The Hindu The steps taken towards social democracy are being reversed. What we have now are social insurance policies from above. This subverts the entire project of giving voice to the voiceless. India has paid a heavy price for failing to institutionalise social democracy It is generally agreed that theories of social democracy, in comparison to theories of formal political democracy, take cognisance of background inequalities that hamper the realisation of basic...

-TheHansIndia.com Anantapur: The Telugu Desam government’s pet subsidised rice scheme conceived by the party’s founder N T Rama Rao has helped the party ride to power several times in the past. But the same scheme is now being watered down by the beneficiaries themselves, both eligible and ineligible, apart from the deep nexus between the dealers and black marketeers. About 40 percent of both eligible and ineligible ration cardholders are actually defeating...

-Huffington Post Of all the arguments that have been raised this turbulent spring in our country, one stands out as egregiously vulgar. It evokes in me the moral equivalent of the middle-ear reflex to high intensity sounds, which has a special place in the hierarchy of unpleasant sensations. It's the tax nationalism argument. In essence, it's this: How dare students benefitting from subsidized education funded by OUR tax money hold opinions that...

-Frontline The Living and Learning Design Centre in a Kutch village is about dialogue between contemporary designers and traditional artisans and about keeping crafts relevant. Kutch: “WHY here? Why a design centre of such sophistication in a small village off a highway?” The answer flashes in one’s mind at the same time: “Because that’s the most logical and relevant place for it.” The answer is validated a while later in a...