-AP American scientist Joshua Apte travels in an autorickshaw to present alarming findings for anyone who spends time on or near the roads in this city of 25 million. The autorickshaw lurched through New Delhi's commuter-clogged streets with an American scientist and several air pollution monitors in the back seat. Car horns blared. A scrappy scooter buzzed by belching black smoke from its tailpipe. One of the monitors spiked. Joshua Apte has alarming...

-The Telegraph The National Democratic Alliance government is planning to scrap the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The chief minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, had already asked for the employment programme of the MGNREGA under which the state was obliged to provide employment on demand (failing which an unemployment allowance of a specified amount had to be paid), to be downgraded to a mere "food-for-work" programme, where the state...

-The Tribune The UPA's flagship programme MGNREGS changed the employment scene for the rural poor. While 100-day job guarantee was a novel step, loopholes and poor implementation rendered it a liability. The Modi govt hopes to gradually reinvent the scheme, if not entirely scrap it. Midway through the Congress-led UPA's second tenure - believed to be largely the courtesy of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) -...

-The Hindustan Times   In the din of elections and euphoria over new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the loss of hundreds of lives in one of the worst Himalayan tragedies in Uttarakhand has been forgotten. The policy correction promised after the tragedy remained mostly on paper and Uttarakhand is back to business as usual - developing but doing little to save the fragile local ecology. The core of the promises made was to check...

-The Hindu   When an electoral system structurally discriminates against particular categories such as persons with disabilities, it is tantamount to a failure of the democracy as a whole The citizens of India are in the process of casting their votes in what is being widely hailed as the largest election in human history. By sheer size, the 16th Lok Sabha elections signal a triumph not only for India, but for democratic exercises...