-Livemint.com Jean Drèze’s new book of essays defends action-oriented research, especially in the field of development economics Designing government policy to eradicate Corruption is not easy. As the “demonetization” exercise demonstrated, such earnest endeavours can have big and unintended consequences and they often might not proceed according to plan. Although not concerning itself with demonetization, a new book by economist Jean Drèze delves into the challenges of making public policy for India....

-The Telegraph Calcutta: Economist Kaushik Basu on Friday regretted the rise of a "narrow-minded" approach and "hatred" in the country. Basu, the C. Marks professor of international studies and professor of economics at Cornell University, made the observation while delivering a lecture on"economics and morality" in memory of Swami Lokeswarananda of the Ramakrishna Mission. "In today's India, we are getting narrow-minded. There is hatred among people," rued the former chief economist of the...

-TheWire.in The Right to Information Act has not been implemented in letter and spirit, which is why the number of RTI appeals and complaints with the Central Information Commission is growing. The Narendra Modi government has made an oft-repeated commitment to promote transparency and participatory decision-making processes to contain the scourge of Corruption in public life. While the Right to Information (RTI) Act is used for promoting free flow of information, the...

-TheWire.in Rights groups tell parliamentary panel that even though late environment minister Anil Dave had assured that concerns would be addressed, rules have still not been framed. New Delhi: Civil society organisations working on environmental conservation have petitioned the parliamentary commission, asking for the repeal or amending of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 (CAF Act) to ensure its compliance with the Forest Rights Act (FRA) . Coming together under the banner of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A survey across 11 states in India by Corruption watchdog Transparency International saw 45% of the respondents claim they paid a bribe at least once in the past year to get work done. The share was 43% in a similar survey last year. Nearly 37% of the 34,696 respondents felt Corruption had increased, while 14% said it had gone down. Around 45% felt the situation was...