-The Hindu Near-universal social security pensions would be a good start to a radical expansion of public support for the elderly Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since Independence — from around 32 years in the late 1940s to 70 years or so today. Many countries have done even better, but this is still a historical achievement. Over the same period, the fertility rate has crashed from about six children...

-Deccan Chronicle Adilabad: When the founding fathers of the Indian republic sat down to write the Constitution, the feature that they gave utmost importance was equality. It was the cornerstone on which the Constitution stands. They wanted each individual to enjoy equality in opportunity as well as treatment. But even 75 years after independence, successive governments failed to make good this constitutional pledge to several sections of people. Women are one of...

It is hard for the media to ignore the findings of global Human Development Report (HDR) whenever a newer and updated version is released. Every time when the HDR is published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), media persons and commentators tend to compare the performance of their respective countries with that of performance in previous years as also with respect to the relative performance of other nations. One of...

-Newslaundry.com The city is woefully ill-prepared, despite thousands of crores spent and warnings that went unheeded. Last week, Bengaluru was battered by rains that were unprecedented in scale and floods that were disastrous in impact. While the rains have abated, thousands living on the periphery of the Bellandur-Varthur lakes in east Bengaluru are still gripped by fear, worried that deliberately narrowed drains, encroachment of wetlands, and state apathy could trigger another round...

-The Telegraph The economy remains vulnerable to headwinds The shortfall in economic growth in the April-June quarter against rosier predictions of most, including the central bank, came as a surprise.Few anticipated the gap between expected and actual performance would be as much (2.5-3 percentage points). It has prompted a tide of downward revisions for the whole year; these follow a previous round, two months ago, due to inflation, higher interest rates, and...