-The Indian Express According to sources, the authorities have taken strong note of the fact that Surendranath got involved in Yakub’s case without permission. The Supreme Court administration is contemplating action against Dr Anup Surendranath, who resigned as the court’s Deputy Registrar (Research) on Friday, after expressing his opinion that its decision in the Yakub Memon case amounted to “judicial abdication”. The court administration feels it was “gross misconduct” on Surendranath’s part to...

-Down to Earth Around 12 million people in India have no proper cooking arrangements. The situation is worse in urban India where around seven per cent of households lack cooking arrangements while in rural India over one per cent of households is deprived of the facility. The facts were revealed by the National SAMple Survey Organisation (NSSO) report based on the 68th round of survey. Maharashtra (3.8 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh...

-Economic and Political Weekly There are basic methodological and conceptual problems with recent research that ends up arguing that private school education is more effective than public education. Such findings have obvious policy implications but it is critical that research that informs policy is based on a correct reading of facts, keeping the larger vision of education in mind. Recent research into the cost effectiveness of public education vis-à-vis private education concludes...

-Outlook The poor are increasingly displaying food preferences for better tasting, flavoured and packaged foods but with low nutritional content. Renewed media hype about counting the number of poor was sparked by the recent release of the Socio-Economic Caste Census. While many analysts found the prevalence of poverty alarmingly high, others debunked the SECC report for its muddled and incoherent view of deprivation. An important contribution of this report, however, is the...

-Outlook Incidents of communal violence in the country have gone up in the first six months of 2015 compared to the corresponding period last year, with 330 riots reported till June this year in which 51 people lost their lives.   According to Home Ministry data, there were 330 incidents of communal violence between January and June, 2015 in comparison to 252 in the first six months of 2014.   Altogether 51 people have lost...