-The Indian Express Amid recent questions about the ECI’s autonomy, a look at how the body has steered India’s electoral history. On March 15, the Citizens’ Commission on Elections (CCE), chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur, which examines critical aspects of conducting elections, released the second part of its report. Titled “An Inquiry into India’s Election System,” the report evaluated the integrity and inclusiveness of the electoral rolls, increasing...

-The Telegraph A day later, Congress and TMC, which has the chairmanship of the committee, said it was a misrepresentation and evidence of the BJP’s “dirty tricks department in action ” New Delhi: Opposition parties were left scrambling for an explanation after a parliamentary panel in which they had representation green-signalled one of the three contentious farm laws in a report tabled in Parliament on Friday. In the report tabled in the Lok...

-TheWire.in According to farmers' organisations, 48 protesters have passed away due to illness and accidents so far. Chandigarh: The Centre’s new farm laws, and the protests they have triggered, are leaving permanent scars on Punjabi families as the number of protesters losing their lives steadily rises. On December 1, 32-year-old Baljinder Singh, a farmer from Jhammat village in Ludhiana, died in a road accident near Kurukshetra in Haryana while returning from the...

-Hindustan Times The mandi has been a major rallying CRY for the protests in Punjab. Its importance to agricultural life cannot be overstated The stand-off between the government and the farmers on the new farm laws shows no signs of easing. For a long time, the government insisted that the protest was led by middlemen and large farmers only in Punjab, and to some extent Haryana, who were concerned about losing their...

-Newsclick.in The government must analyse its existing data collection exercises, rationalise them and improve the inefficient statistical administration. It is good news that the Labour Bureau will revive its establishments-based Quarterly Employment Surveys or QES, using a larger sample. Since the Periodic Labour Force Surveys or PLFS collects data from households, the proposed quarterly survey of jobs will collect data from establishments. But it is advisable to review the multiple existing employment...