-The Indian Express Jaipur: The hotly debated Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Amendment Bill 2015 fixing minimum educational qualifications for contesting Panchayat polls in the state, was passed by the state legislative assembly on Friday. With this Rajasthan becomes the only state to have mandatory minimum educational qualifications to contest for Panchayat polls. The Bill was passed by a voice vote by the dominant ruling party even as Opposition legislators raised objections to it...

-The Telegraph Shreya Singhal has helped undo what the UPA, the NDA and Mamata Banerjee had done to free speech. Shreya, the girl who once woke up with consternation to news that two girls in Maharashtra had been booked for a Facebook post, was the first petitioner who approached the Supreme Court against Section 66A, which was struck down today. Section 66A of the Information Technology Act has been the favourite tool...

-The New Indian Express For now the storm is over. Untimely monsoons, which create much havoc for farmers, became a parliamentary allegory with the Congress raining on Modi's parade over the Land Bill. In spite of all the manoeuvring that will follow, clouds threaten to hang low over the next session too. This is indicated in Sonia Gandhi's decision to take to the streets in protest - a leaf taken from...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi on Friday put the government in a somewhat embarrassing situation in Lok Sabha when she agreed with opposition members that the severe budget cuts that her ministry faced would adversely affect welfare of children in the country. A vociferous opposition demanded promptly demanded that finance minister Arun Jaitley respond to the issue. Maneka made the comments in relation to...

-Frontline If Budget 2015 is any indication, the Modi government is going beyond what could be called benign neglect of agriculture to policy moves that are likely to harm its viability. IT is scarcely surprising that farmers are upset with the Narendra Modi government. Indeed, the rosy dreams created by that famous campaign advertisement of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), when farmers spoke of the high crop prices and better cultivation conditions...