-The Indian Express Amid recent questions about the ECI’s autonomy, a look at how the body has steered India’s electoral history. On March 15, the Citizens’ Commission on Elections (CCE), chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur, which examines critical aspects of conducting elections, released the second part of its report. Titled “An Inquiry into India’s Election System,” the report evaluated the integrity and inclusiveness of the electoral rolls, increasing...

-The Indian Express The state must prioritise removing malnutrition, give uncompromising priority to improving primary health infrastructure In 1947, post-colonial India set off with the ambition of building a modern state on the principles of equality where citizens, by virtue of their birth in the country, would be entitled to a life of dignity. While the Constitution provided the rights to life, liberty, nutritional standards and maternity care, it did not explicitly...

-The Indian Express A Delhi government-commissioned employment survey has captured the severity of the job crisis plaguing the national capital. What is the highlight of the report? What does it say on female participation in the workforce? A Delhi government-commissioned employment survey, carried out between September-November 2020, has captured the severity of the job crisis plaguing the national capital, which continues to reel under the impact of the pandemic and the consequent...

-Scroll.in Modi government’s flagship Ujjwala scheme continues to hand out new gas connections without fixing the problem of unaffordability. At the start of every monsoon, Doli Kumari’s family refills their LPG cooking gas cylinder and uses it for three or four months. As the rains recede in their village of Tarauna Bhojpur in Bihar’s Araria district, the family switches back to burning wood for daily cooking. This monsoon, however, the family plans not...

-Hindustan Times Women are not dropping out. They are being pushed out by the lack of demand for their labour. There has been movement out of agriculture into informal and casual jobs, where the work is sporadic, and often less than 30 days at a stretch. The new modern sector opportunities, especially in high value-added service sectors, mostly accrue to men. Why is women’s employment declining in India? The thrust of the...