-The Hindu The demand for a reverse osmosis water filter device has been growing in my household. ‘Has our existing water filter stopped being friendly?’ has been my consistent query. ‘It is time we got a new one’ has been the standard response. Considered to be one of that generation to whom the ‘utility’ of a product carries a lot of meaning, listing the virtues of new technology has often been...

-Ideas for India In 2007, Bihar introduced the coupon system in PDS to curb leakages at fair price shops. This column argues that even though the administrative logic of the coupon system is fundamentally sound, such reform can be effective only when accompanied by institutional transformations that broker change in the existing local politics of inclusion and exclusion.  The performance of Bihar’s public distribution system (PDS) remains a topic of considerable national...

-PTI Agro-solar policy to benefit both farmers and power generation firms AHMEDABAD: Gujarat is going to become the first state in the country to launch ‘agro-solar policy’ under which farmers will be roped in to tap energy from sun which will also help them earn additional income from power generation companies, according to officials. According to officials in Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute (Germi), farmers and power generation companies will be in...

-The Indian Express Note to policymakers: Access to technology by itself does not ensure learning. Speaking at the Saarc Summit in Nepal last November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that “information technology has removed all barriers to quality education”. With the launch of Digital India, state governments and education practitioners have become increasingly interested in the potential of technology to address low learning levels in primary schools. Behind Modi’s assertion is a...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmers' unions and political parties have been demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan minimum support price (cost plus 50%) to address agrarian crisis and farmers' distress. But they have not raised demands for the implementation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers, which have the potential to provide lasting solutions. Ranjit Singh Ghuman (ghumanrs@yahoo.co.uk) is a Nehru SAIL Chair Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and...