-The Business Standard   More, water levels in the reservoirs of southern India are below the 10-year average at 8.28 billion cubic metres As doubts mount over the impact of El Niño on the southwest monsoon season in 2014, India's preparedness to face a low rainfall situation seems to have improved in the past four-five years. However, there are many gaps to be plugged. For example, although the average water in major reservoirs across...

-The Hindu   So far, the electoral promises of allocation of six per cent of GDP to education have remained as pious wishes Election manifestoes over decades have rhetorically spoken of six per cent of GDP or more to education and this election has been no exception; the actual spending on education is only around three per cent. Not surprisingly, school infrastructure and teaching personnel are inadequate and of poor quality while the dropout...

-Live Mint   Strong political commitment is needed to build a system of universal health coverage and better regulations   Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since independence, to 65 years, from just 32 in 1950. The infant mortality rate has been cut by two-thirds since 1971. Smallpox and guinea worm have been eradicated, the spread of HIV/AIDS has been contained, and the World Health Organization has declared India polio-free.   Yet for all...

-The Indian Express   MGNREGA is beset with failures of planning, execution, monitoring and accountability. This election season, we have seen the BJP seeking the people's mandate on the slogan "sab ka saath, sab ka vikas". The Congress harps primarily on a "we gave you" list. The first in this list is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). The 11th Five Year Plan recognised that 30 crore people lived below the...

-The Indian Express   India's rentier capitalism is an inset in the big picture drawn by Thomas Piketty   French economist Thomas Piketty has written a scholarly tome with the humdrum title, Capital in the 21st Century. The book has become an overnight sensation because Piketty documents an inherent tendency for ever-increasing inequality of income and wealth in capitalist economic systems. It is not an accident, he says, that many will be left behind...