-The Hindu A woman winning a close election against a man results in an increase in the ratio of female candidates fielded by major parties in the next election, according to a study A body of new data, including original analysis by The Hindu, is showing for the first time that women politicians are slowly but surely opening the door for other women politicians. The Hindu's analysis of data from the 2013 Assembly...

-The Business Standard Intrastate inequality can only be corrected through reform of budgetary allocation formulae between districts within states The hoopla surrounding election results in India is reminiscent of nothing so much as a horse race ("...and X romps home the winner!"). The difference is that for the horse and its handlers, the work is done when the race is over. For the winners in the recent round of state elections,...

-Governance Now Professor Sanjay Kumar, co-director of Lokniti, a research programme of the New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and one of our leading ‘election watchers', maintains that we must not read too much in the higher voting numbers and credits the election commission for preparing more accurate voter rolls. Excerpts from an interview with Trithesh Nandan: * What do you make of the phenomenon of higher turnouts? Everybody...

-The Business Standard Oil minister says Parikh report sound but government has to take realities into account; to proceed with Direct Benefits Transfer in 291 districts from January despite SC order Union petroleum minister M Veerappa Moily said there'd be no raising of the present cap on the number of subsidised cooking gas (LPG) cylinders a household was entitled to in a year. In the wake of severe electoral reverses for the ruling...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Indian economy, Asia's third-largest, faces a difficult situation where growth has slowed to a decade low but price pressures have remained stubborn. It has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, and the highest in Asia. Weak growth and high inflation also complicated the policy choice for the central bank. Separate data released by the Central Statistics Office showed industrial output slumped 1.8%...