-The Indian Express UP’s farm loan waiver could prompt other states to follow suit, evade real reasons for agricultural distress The new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, has hit the ground running. In his first cabinet meeting, he took three important decisions with regard to farmers. First, he waived farm loans of more than Rs 36,000 crore, primarily of the small and marginal farmers who comprise 92 per cent of the...

-The Indian Express Motor vehicles amendment bill comes back from standing committee, welcomed in Lok Sabha A BILL that proposes radical reforms in traffic laws, imposing strict penalties for violations and holding vehicle manufacturers accountable for design defects, found all-round support in Lok Sabha Friday. So did Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, whom Opposition MPs described as a “very good” minister who takes everyone on board. The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2016...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel has sounded the alarm on state governments waiving farm loans and has called for a consensus on eschewing them to avoid damaging the national balance sheet. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Aditya Nath recently announced a Rs 36,000-crore farm loan waiver, which could trigger copycat decisions by the Punjab and Maharashtra governments. "It undermines honest credit Culture, it impacts credit...

-TheWire.in Inaction of state government to regulate abattoirs in the past cannot be a shield for imposing “a state of almost prohibition” on meat, says Allahabad high court. Noting that food habits are an essential part of UP’s secular Culture, the Allahabad high court held that food and trade in foodstuff is constitutionally guaranteed under the right to live. The Lucknow bench of the high court was ruling on a petition brought...

-The Indian Express A large new study, releasing today, seeks to understand the fundamental bases of the choices India makes while voting in elections. The study seeks to document the ideas and attitudes that frame the country’s larger political Culture. There is a lack of over-time data on how Indians think about intercommunity relations, relations between citizens and the government, and the nature of the political community. To fill this gap, the...