-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After its plan to penalise journalists identified as purveyors of fake news was nixed by the PMO, the I&B ministry has now decided to set up a Social Media communication hub and deploy executives to monitor online content across each of India’s 716 districts. The monitoring mechanism, once in place, will be able to read, contextualise and respond to content in most Indian and foreign languages...

If someone is a rural male, what occupation would he prefer? A rational person might say that depending on the highest prevailing daily wage rate in a particular occupation (which is subject to seasonal variation) vis-à-vis the rest, he will make his choice.   An exercise undertaken by the Inclusive Media for Change team based on the latest available month-wise wage data of rural men shows that there is a seasonal variation...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Concerned over hate campaigns and defamatory attacks in Social Media that have come to dominate political discourse during elections, eight former chief election commissioners (CECs) on Monday suggested that the Election Commission tackle them at source by persuading sites such as Twitter and Facebook to block them “in public interest”. Alternatively, they suggested, the poll panel could engage with the parties to convince them to practise...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: In a glaring case of apathy, ailing self-trained farm innovator Dadaji Khobragade (80), who revolutionized paddy farming by developing the high yielding variety of rice called HMT, is struggling to meet his medical expenses. His family has been forced to make a public appeal for donations for just Rs 2 lakh to pay for his hospitalisation. Khobragade, who hails from Nanded village in Nagbid tehsil of eastern...

-CaravanMagazine.in The economist Jean Drèze’s book, Sense and Solidarity, published in late 2017, deals with the impact of Aadhaar on social-welfare programmes, such as the National Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among other things. Drèze was a member of the United Progressive Alliance government’s advisory council, which designed the NFSA and MGNREGS. He co-authored some of the essays in this book with colleagues and...