-The Indian Express Jaipur: The hotly debated Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Amendment Bill 2015 fixing minimum educational qualifications for contesting Panchayat polls in the state, was passed by the state legislative assembly on Friday. With this Rajasthan becomes the only state to have mandatory minimum educational qualifications to contest for Panchayat polls. The Bill was passed by a voice vote by the dominant ruling party even as Opposition legislators raised objections to it...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi on Friday put the government in a somewhat embarrassing situation in Lok Sabha when she agreed with opposition members that the severe budget cuts that her ministry faced would adversely affect welfare of children in the country. A vociferous opposition demanded promptly demanded that finance minister Arun Jaitley respond to the issue. Maneka made the comments in relation to...

-Frontline If Budget 2015 is any indication, the Modi government is going beyond what could be called benign neglect of agriculture to policy moves that are likely to harm its viability. IT is scarcely surprising that farmers are upset with the Narendra Modi government. Indeed, the rosy dreams created by that famous campaign advertisement of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), when farmers spoke of the high crop prices and better cultivation conditions...

-The Indian Express Unused priority sector lending funds of commercial banks will be used to set up the Rs 20,000 crore corpus of the proposed MUDRA Bank. The bank will use at least 65 per cent of its funds for lending to micro enterprises run by members of scheduled castes and tribes. Typically, domestic commercial banks deposit their lending shortfall from priority sector to the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund of the NABARD...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The law commission has opposed the concept of compulsory voting, saying it is "highly undesirable", and recommended that either the President or a governor - and not the Speaker - should decide whether to disqualify a lawmaker who switches sides. The recommendations are among a series of electoral reforms that the commission, headed by retired Delhi High Court Chief Justice A.P. Shah, has suggested in a report it...