-Livemint.com Economist Esther Duflo on demonetisation impact, role of randomized control trials in policymaking, low priority assigned to health and education in India New Delhi: India’s demonetisation of high-value currency notes is a dramatic example of a policy announcement made without any serious thought given to implementation, said Esther Duflo, one of the leading development economists of the world and a professor at the department of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of...

-Economic and Political Weekly Mihir Shah (mihirbhai25@gmail.com) was Chair, Committee on Restructuring the Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board set up by the Ministry of Water Resources (September 2015 to July 2016). The chair summarises background, main features, and addresses some of the issues raised by the articles in this issue. As Member, Planning Commissionfrom 2009 to 2014, I was able to play a small part in kickstarting fundamental reforms...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: Starved of cash, 15 farmers of a village in Gwalior deposited 45 quintals of paddy as their children's school fees on Saturday. The school management sold the crop at a mandi and got a cheque of Rs 58,500. Bhitarwar region of Gwalior is known as the rice bowl of Madhya Pradesh, and paddy is the main crop of the kharif season. Villages here have run out of...

-The Hindu Birth certificates not needed any more; grievances will be now handled on Twitter. In a move to speed up and simplify the passport delivery process, the government on Friday announced a series of steps that would help single mothers, orphaned children, and sadhus obtain passports with ease. Announcing the changes that will relax the need for birth certificates in the application process, Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd.) V.K....

-The Times of India There is a trace of pride in Nisha Chaurasiya's voice as she complains of how she and her co-workers in an anganwadi in Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh struggled to provide food to babies and children, and to expectant women, since demonetisation took effect on November 8. "The self-help groups borrowed money from everybody, stood in bank queues, pleaded with officials and even spent from their own MEAgre savings...