-The Hindu In instilling a regime where there is a presumption against citizenship, the Foreigners Act denies the weakest their rights A series of judgments delivered by the Gauhati High Court over the course of the last few weeks has brought into sharp focus the utter brutality of the regime governing the Foreigners’ Tribunals in Assam. These verdicts entrench the establishment of an unreasonable burden on people declared as deemed foreigners by...

-Hindustan Times The department officials said the idea of storing wheat on the premises of rice mills could not materialise because they already have an excess paddy stock. Chandigarhh: In the wake of a stalemate with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) over finalisation of storage rates for covered area plinths (storage in open), the Punjab food and civil supplies department has decided to store wheat produce in the state’s grain markets...

-The Hindu The absence of playgrounds and electricity in govt. schools speaks poorly of policy priorities It should rank as an irony that as a founder-leader of the International Solar Alliance, India has not yet electrified a significant number of government schools, while extolling the elegance and virtue of photovoltaic electricity to the rest of the world. The lack of power in schools is taken note of by the Parliamentary Standing Committee...

-Hindustan Times They are a valuable tool for improved discoms. But they can’t solve what are fundamentally governance failures Much has changed in the electricity sector in the last few years. Electricity generation capacity is now surplus after years of deficits, and the price of solar power has fallen by 70%. But one thing that has barely changed is the performance of the electricity distribution companies (discoms), which continue to bleed money....

-The Hindu Parliamentary panel says there is still a lot of ground to cover A parliamentary committee has said only three States and five Union Territories have become kerosene-free, though the government in September last met the target of eight crore LPG connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. The report of the Parliamentary Committee on Petroleum, which was tabled last week, points to the gap between the continuing use of kerosene and...