-Scroll.in The study conducted by the Association for Democratic Reforms found that only 9% of the Electoral college is represented by women. Around 33% of the Electoral college that will vote in the July 17 presidential polls, 33% have declared criminal cases against themselves. These were declared in affidavits filed with the Election Commission of India before their most recent elections, according to a survey released by the Association for Democratic...

-TheWire.in The State Human Rights Commission stopped short of announcing action against the army, as it lacked jurisdiction. Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir’s State Human Rights Commission on Monday directed the government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to Farooq Ahmad Dar, the man who was strapped to an army jeep and paraded around villages as a human shield in Kashmir’s Budgam district on April 9. In a five-page order, commission chairperson Justice...

-TheWire.in The Indian farmer is not just a poor, helpless victim who deserves a waiver because he cannot pay. The root cause of the debt trap is that his income has not increased with rising expenditure due to state policies. As Punjab joins the list of states to declare farm loan waivers, the political scales are now heavily tilted in favour of this idea. The government of Telangana, followed by Andhra Pradesh,...

-Livemint.com Doling out farm loan waivers without addressing rural distress is just kicking the can down the road and playing into the hands of the moral hazard brigade Last week, farmers agitating for better prices for their produce of onions and pulses—prices for both of which have witnessed a steep fall in recent months—in Mandsaur district of western Madhya Pradesh turned violent. Coming in the backdrop of a similar agitation by farmers in...

-IndiaSpend/ Business Standard In Uttar Pradesh, Nagaland, Jharkhand and Bihar, fewer than 50% of rural households have electricity As many as 73% of the 18,452 villages that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government identified for electrification in 2015 now have power supply, but only 8% of these villages had all their households electrified, according to the government’s own data. As of May 25, 2017, 13,523 villages have been electrified, but 100% household connectivity...