-The Telegraph For starters, it would alter the prices at which such support was calculated for ensuring a basic real income With Rahul Gandhi’s announcement of the Congress’s “historic decision” to adopt an income guarantee scheme, the idea of a universal basic income, mooted in the Economic Survey two years ago, has suddenly got a fillip. It appears attractive at first sight: its universality avoids the discrimination, exclusion and jockeying that typically...

-The Hindu Business Line Need to do more R&D in rainfed agriculture and bring in more policy perspective: Ashok Dalwai Even though rainfed agriculture contributes to 60 per cent of the value of agriculture GDP of India, there is a clear-cut bias towards irrigated areas when it comes to public investment in agriculture in the country. This neglect, together with unsuitable programme design, has ensured that potential of rain-fed areas remains unrealised, a...

-Hindustan Times Election Commission’s faulty audit plan has led to an avoidable controversy. We recommend a few steps. The bizarre claim made in London recently about the alleged hacking of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in previous elections has done more harm than good by diverting public attention from genuine concerns about EVMs and the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) lack of transparency in the matter. The controversy over the security of EVMs dates...

-The Hindu The SDG India Index overlooks the aspect of inter-dependence of Sustainable Development Goals India was one among the 193 United Nations member states to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015. It has been making sincere efforts to achieve these goals. The SDG India Index: Baseline Report 2018, released to the public in December 2018 by NITI Aayog, is a useful comparative account of how well different States...

-IDRonline.org Replacing India's Public Distribution System with Direct Benefit Transfers will improve efficiency, but shouldn't be implemented at the cost of individual choice. The Public Distribution System (PDS) is India’s flagship food security programme but also suffers from well-known inefficiencies. Even official government estimates suggest that a large share of public spending on the PDS does not reach intended beneficiaries. Thus, the idea of Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) in lieu of subsidised...