-The Business Standard The Planning Commission needs to be replaced by institutions prescribed under the Constitution for the functions it usurped The Planning Commission was a powerful centre of extra-constitutional authority, but not because the Constitution overlooked the need for the roles that it played. The prescription of fiscal flows from Centre to states was assigned under Article 280 to Finance Commissions, set up every five years with what by convention...

-The Hindu   Instead of reinventing or restructuring the Planning Commission, we need to replace it with a think tank that supports high-quality independent research The Planning Commission is neither a constitutional nor a statutory body, but over the years it has acquired tremendous power of distant planning which is unsuitable to a country as diverse and complex as India. Let us neither reinvent nor restructure such a body. Let us, instead, make...

-The Indian Express Exposure to television and digital media grew by leaps and bounds between 2005 and 2012. From Naxalbari to the Arab Spring, our popular imagination has seen the youth as the harbinger of revolution that breaks down the bastions of privilege. How do we reconcile this with the decisive victory that modern Indian youth have handed to the BJP, whose manifesto focused on entrepreneurship rather than redistribution? I would like...

-The Business Standard Raipur: The Chhattisgarh government has decided to increase the subsidy amount to farmers opting for installation of drip and sprinkler irrigation systems in the state. The government would provide 25 per cent of the total cost of drip and sprinkler installation to small farmers and medium farmers. The big farmers would get 10 per cent of the total cost as subsidy. "The state government has hiked its contribution in...

-Live Mint Govt schools in Bihar test grouping children by level of learning instead of age for improving outcomes Jehanabad (Bihar): It's just after breakfast and barefoot children trickle into the classroom. Brightly coloured posters adorn the white walls-the solar system, a counting and phonetic chart, parts of the body, and a portrait of a radiant B.R. Ambedkar, a builder of modern India. It looks like any other government school classroom. But...