-The Hindu The government's reasoning that the land ordinance was meant to extend the benefit of the new law to various types of land acquisitions left uncovered so far is disingenuous Democracy is an exercise in public reason. Democratically elected governments cannot simply throw around the weight of their majority. They have a responsibility to offer good reasons for their decisions. And they must do so publicly. That is why we follow...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government's practice of letting the Prime Minister's Office take all the major decisions on behalf of virtually every ministry resulted in the women and child development ministry receiving flak from the Supreme Court this week. On Wednesday, the court rapped the ministry for allowing the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights to remain vacant for the past three months since the tenures of...

-The Financial Express With 66% of its population under the age of 35, India is home to the largest cohort of young people in the world-825 million. The median age of the country is just 27 years, much below 37 in the US and 46 in Japan. Numbers like these suggest that India has a competitive advantage over China and other Asian countries-a demographic dividend. But favourable demographics do not imply that...

-Down to Earth The primary health centre (PHC) at Ajara block in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district would handle just eight childbirth cases a year till 2011. Today, it handles over 125 such cases in a year. The health centre became efficient because of a Central government scheme that empowers communities to monitor public health services. In 2010, the residents participated in a jan sunwai (public hearing) session, in which they told senior...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A panel appointed by the Supreme Court has suggested that government advertisements stay politically neutral and avoid glorification of political personalities, positive portrayals of the ruling party or negative projections of the Opposition. It has said that governments should cut down on ads particularly before and during elections, and must not be seen as using ads to patronise media houses to secure favourable coverage. The court asked the Centre...