-Scroll.in The Swaraj India leader says the economy needs a big boost in the rural areas and for small scale manufacturers. In July, Yogendra Yadav, the national president of the Swaraj India party, embarked on a nationwide movement accompanied by activists and hundreds of farmers. Under the banner of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee, a coalition of more than 150 farmer unions across the country, the yatra was planned...

-TheWire.in The World Bank’s estimate that Aadhaar has the potential to save $11 billion in subsidies every year has repeatedly been used by the Centre to justify the programme. But does this figure hold up under close scrutiny? Evidence-based policy-making usually proceeds by outlining the problem at hand, discussing various solutions, conducting studies to understand the effectiveness of these solutions and then prescribing a course of action based on accumulated evidence. It’s safe...

-TheWire.in In addition to “launching” a scheme that basically already existed, the prime minister’s claim that his government has a good record on rural electrification contradicts the data. Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week announced a reportedly brand new scheme to electrify all villages in India and to provide electricity to all by the end of 2018. The scheme was called the Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana or ‘Saubhagya’ intiative....

-India Today Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh criticised Modi government's handling of the economy and demanded stimulus package towards employment generating activities in labour intensive sectors. On a day when senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha trained his guns against the government's economic policies, a Sangh-affiliate Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) also hit out at the Modi government. The RSS affiliate criticised the Modi government's handling of the economy, called...

-CaravanMagazine.in How political rhetoric has drowned out the economic realities of cattle-slaughter bans In mid August, news broke that more than 200 cows had starved to death in a shelter in Chhattisgarh owned by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader named Harish Verma. After the reports appeared, Verma protested that he had not received funds that the government had promised him for the shelter. But the irony could not have been starker. The BJP...