-The Indian Express Families have a preferred number of sons at any given fertility level as well as a preferred fertility level.   In his maiden Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lamented the neglect of daughters, restrictions on their movements, parental attitudes that favoured sons, shameful rapes of girls and women, the lack of toilet facilities and sanitation. In a populist vein, he urged parents to treat sons and daughters...

-The Business Standard Nilekani probably managed to save the project by a persuasive talk with Modi, but the concerns haven't gone away It is widely believed that Nandan Nilekani's meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saved the ambitious Aadhaar project from oblivion or a takeover by the home ministry. Within a couple of days of the meeting, Modi gave directions to expedite enrolments through Aadhaar, along with the direct benefits transfer (DBT) project...

-The Telegraph Jaipur: In the space of a month, a remote Rajasthan village has taken a tiny step towards fulfilling the Prime Minister's dream of a Swachh Bharat, free of open defecation and open drains. But Bhanwari village in Rajasthan's Pali district, about 328km from Jaipur, has done it without the Centre's help and fast enough to beat the rains. Between May and June this year, Bhanwari has transformed itself into one of...

-The Times of India Mitu Kumari, in charge of a government school in Patahin, a village on the outskirts of Muzaffarpur, Bihar, has a measured enthusiasm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement that toilets for girls will be built in schools that still don't have this basic facility. For her 146 students and three women teachers, absence of toilets is an intolerable problem. "I have written to everybody, from the village mukhia...

The Business Standard The Planning Commission has not been central to the policymaking process since the mid-1960s In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the end of the Planning Commission. There will be few mourners at its funeral, mainly old war horses like me. So this is in the nature of an obituary for an institution in which I served for a decade and a half, and where I...