-The Hindu Such an ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of schemes meant to help them Who is a farmer? What is the government’s definition of a farmer and how many farmers are there in India by that definition? Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar failed to answer that question when it was asked in Parliament last week. The government’s ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of the...

-The Indian Express Transgender Persons Bill has let down the community’s long struggle for self respect. The passage of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019, has caused great disapointment to the transgender community in India that had urged the Rajya Sabha to refer the Bill to a select committee. The Bill failed to incorporate crucial recommendations of the Parliament Standing Committee and several depositions by the transgender and intersex community....

-The Telegraph An over six-year low of 4.5 per cent The Narendra Modi government’s bluster on the state of the Indian economy was bottled on Friday after the National Statistical Office (NSO) came out with data that showed growth in the second quarter had sunk to an over six-year low of 4.5 per cent — the slowest expansion in 26 quarters. The sharp slowdown was triggered by a contraction in the manufacturing sector...

-The Indian Express The inequality in India’s education system gets a shot at redemption in the country’s public universities, which give students from different backgrounds a window to a more democratic future. As proposals of fee hike meet with protests, a look at how access to subsidised higher education has fuelled dreams and opened up opportunities for the disadvantaged Till three years ago, it was life as usual for Suraj Tiwari....

-The Indian Express At current rates of depletion, Punjab’s entire subsurface water resource could be exhausted in a little over two decades. Jalandhar: As the discussion around Punjab’s massive groundwater crisis becomes more urgent, there is an increasingly stronger accent on diversification of crops, and a move away from water-guzzling paddy. At a meeting over the weekend, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, decided to strengthen maize — the most important alternative to...