-The Indian Express Exposure to television and digital media grew by leaps and bounds between 2005 and 2012. From Naxalbari to the Arab Spring, our popular imagination has seen the youth as the harbinger of revolution that breaks down the bastions of privilege. How do we reconcile this with the decisive victory that modern Indian youth have handed to the BJP, whose manifesto focused on entrepreneurship rather than redistribution? I would like...
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The barefoot government -Bunker Roy
-The Indian Express A government shorn of Western educated ministers could change the status quo. Since 1947, Indians have not spoken out so strongly and clearly for a completely new brand of people running government. Mercifully, there are no ministers educated abroad. Thankfully, none of them has been brainwashed at Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, the World Bank or the IMF, subtly forcing expensive Western solutions on typically Indian problems at the cost of...
More »A school toilet is not just about a loo -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India Mitu Kumari, in charge of a government school in Patahin, a village on the outskirts of Muzaffarpur, Bihar, has a measured enthusiasm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement that toilets for girls will be built in schools that still don't have this basic facility. For her 146 students and three women teachers, absence of toilets is an intolerable problem. "I have written to everybody, from the village mukhia...
More »End this quibbling over poverty figures -PP Sangal
-The Hindu Business Line The Rangarajan panel has added to the confusion. Let's have one final committee to set things right There is constant confusion in India over BPL (below poverty line) figures proffered by different agencies. The latest is the debate over the Rangarajan Committee's estimates, as against the assessment of the Tendulkar Committee. The difference in their estimates is due to variation in the parameters adopted. In other words, the definition...
More »‘Build kitchens for children instead of temples’
-PTI Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Sunday appealed to people to focus on building centralised kitchens to feed children instead of constructing temples. "If we can provide quality food to children under the mid-day meal scheme, we can drastically reduce the dropout ratio. I believe that it's better to build kitchens to feed children than building temples," Ms. Patel said, inaugurating a fully-automated kitchen, built by an NGO, The Akshaya...
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