-Livemint.com The possible macroeconomic consequences of demonetisation are cause for concern as cash is the lifeblood of the economy It is exactly one month since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the decision that Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes would cease to be legal tender acceptable for payments in settlement of transactions. There was some provision for exchange or deposit of old notes at banks, but with specified limits on sums and time. The past...

-TheWire.in To oppose the forest department’s plan to limit open grazing, the pastoral community is formally pursuing their collective land rights through the Forest Rights Act. The sun has not yet decided to rise. It’s pitch black out but a group of Maldharis has already assembled for the last session of this year’s milking competition. Their massive buffalos are majestically adorned with intricate garlands and colourful necklaces. The panch (group of five...

-The Hindu New Delhi: As videos of the alleged police encounter of eight SIMI men who broke out of the Bhopal Central Jail continue to raise demands for a judicial probe, a series of Supreme Court judgments show that the law is heavily, even fatally, loaded against police officers found guilty of 'fake encounters'. One of the judgments even recommends death penalty to “trigger-happy” cops and compares them to Nazi war criminals...

-The Hindu Business Line The NITI Aayog should revive district-level planning in order to implement the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution While the Planning Commission, which was virtually an executive arm of the Union government, stands abolished, the District Planning Committee (DPC), a constitutional institution mandated “to prepare a draft development plan for the district as a whole” with a focus on resource endowments, environmental conservation, infrastructural development and spatial...

-The Telegraph Algiers (Algeria): At a time when a debate over triple talaq and the need for a uniform civil code rages in India, a Sunni Muslim-dominated country that Vice-President Hamid Ansari just visited offers some interesting insight. Algeria, the north African country that figures in the Modi regime's Africa outreach, last year adopted a law criminalising domestic violence against women despite conservative Muslims terming it an intrusion into a couple's privacy. The...