-The Indian Express Under Article 6 of the Constitution, anyone who migrated to India before July 19, 1948, from territory that had become part of Pakistan, automatically became a citizen if either of their parents or grandparents was born in India. But those who entered India after this date needed to register themselves. A petition pending before the Supreme Court, and expected to come up before a five-judge Bench, could potentially affect...

-TheWeek.in Noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil blames the “law-flouting” state government for the devastation in Kerala. The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), headed by Gadgil in 2011, had suggested measures to preserve the ecologically frail Ghats. But, the Kerala government, like the other five states, chose to reject the report. Having suffered such devastation, Gadgil feels that the state should survey the “ecologically sensitive zones” that have been compromised due to...

A recent report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) enlightens one about the state of farmers' income and indebtedness in 2015-16. Entitled NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey 2016-17 – in short NAFIS 2016-17 – the report says that between 2012-13 and 2015-16 the average monthly income for agricultural households grew by around 39 percent. One may recall that the Key Indicators of Situation Assessment Survey...

-The Hindu Health protection scheme for 10.74 crore beneficiary families and 50 crore Indian Citizens The healthcare sector has welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement in his Independence Day address that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan, also known as Ayushman Bharat or the National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM), will be launched on September 25. The government-sponsored health insurance scheme will provide free coverage of up to ?5 lakh a family a year...

-The Hindu Can India manage with a certain amount of disorder to sustain a plural vision of democracy? The current situation in Assam seems like a nightmare, a warning about the internal contradictions of democracy. It is a warning that the 19th century ideas of democracy as electoral-ism and the notion of the nation-state as a fetishism of borders may be inappropriate as imaginations for the 21st century. It is a caution...