-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Before populism spikes in the run-up to the general elections, the Planning Commission has cautioned states against doling out freebies such as free laptops, tablets, and mobiles in the name of development spending and instead asked them to focus on schemes related to infrastructure development. "This year's message is basically that states must have much more efficient functioning of the inclusiveness scheme. Since a lot of the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Yet another report has criticized the government for tardy implementation of the right to education (RTE). While the three-year deadline for implementation passed in April, 11% schools are still without toilets, 20% don't have safe drinking water and 74% are without a library. The report by the organization Child Rights and You (CRY) also states that 61% schools demand proof of age, which is not...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Union tourism secretary Pervez Dewan has asked the National Council of educational Research and Training (NCERT) to remove a sentence in a Class X geography textbook that reads tourism has not been encouraged in the Northeast "for strategic reasons". For Kavya Barnadhya Hazarika, a Class XI student of Maharishi Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School here, it's a lesson learnt that persistence pays. Kavya had written to both President Pranab...

-The Indian Express Why the proposed national minimum wage is the wrong answer to questions of unemployment and poverty The recent national labour conference - a trade union love fest with little real employer participation - demanded a national minimum wage. The trade union demand is a predictable positioning of narrow self-interest as national interest but the government's acceptance of their demand is unfair, delusional and economically stupid. Unfair, because it pampers a...

Groundwater, which irrigates half of Indian agriculture and provides 85% of rural drinking consumption, is an increasingly scarce resource. There is a growing understanding that it must be approached as a common property resource for collective benefit. It is best understood and managed by those who live near them and use them rather than agencies who visit sporadically - that is the central premise of efforts around participatory groundwater management....