-The Indian Express Swiss voted against the idea of a Universal Basic Income. But the debate continues We in India tend to associate Switzerland with fresh-faced girls in dirndls on a beautiful hillside, or with a cabal of silent bankers, but it is in fact a much more interesting country than those clichés might imply. For one, they decide on policy by referendums — if a hundred thousand Swiss sign up to...

Although public goods are meant for everyone to enable living life with human dignity, certain groups are systematically deprived to access them, says a new report from the Centre for Equity Studies -- a NGO based in Delhi. Put differently, not all sections of the society are able to access or enjoy public goods and services on an equal footing, despite social justice being one of the key provisions of...

-The Hindu ‘Groundwater will not be a free resource’   New Delhi: The government has for the first time said that citizens had a right to safe water and laid out stringent rules on how corporations and large entities can extract groundwater in two separate pieces of draft legislation uploaded on the website of the Union Water Ministry and open for public comment. The Bills —in a first — also propose fines ranging from...

-The Indian Express Draft law says water shall not be denied to anyone over inability to pay, being proposed as model legislation for states. A proposed new law on water promises to give every person the right to a minimum amount of “safe water”, while making the state “obliged” to “protect” and conserve water. The draft National Water Framework Bill says every person would be entitled to “water for life” that shall...

-The Times of India The central government has spent Rs 9,093 crore on building about 1.8 crore toilets across the country under the Swachh Bharat Mission since October 2014. This is because Prime Minister Modi has made the drive a priority. The mission also envisages a cleaner India at large, although this part of the plan is hazy. The question that arises now is — how is this frenzy of toilet-building changing...