-IndiaSpend.org/TheWire.in Uttar Pradesh accounted for a fifth of all religious conflicts–or “communal incidents”, as they are officially called–in India between 2010 and 2014, according to data tabled in the Lok Sabha. As many as 703 religious conflicts were reported in Uttar Pradesh (UP) during the past five years, leading to 176 deaths and 2007 injuries, the highest in India. The first six months of 2015 saw 68 such incidents in UP, India’s...

-DNA The Modi government’s soil-testing scheme doesn’t address the causes of agrarian distress In February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an ambitious Rs568 crore Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme. The objective of the three-year scheme is to issue soil health cards to 14 crore farmers spread across India. The cards will be given out after determining the quality of soil, identifying its macro- and micronutrients as well as its...

-The Indian Express Delhi lost the window of opportunity to avoid an outbreak because of a governance deficit; first because the state was in election mode and then because of the AAP’s internal squabbles. The past few weeks have witnessed substantial media coverage on the dengue outbreak in Delhi. Heartrending stories of clearly avoidable deaths gave the crisis a human face. Focusing on Delhi, most sought to expose the lack of...

-The Hindu The idea of attacking poverty by increasing mobile connectivity in a country that ranks 55 in the Global Hunger Index is just fantasy Interviewer: What would you regard as the most outstanding and significant event of the last decade? Siddhartha: The… war in Vietnam, sir. Interviewer: More significant than landing on the moon? Siddhartha: I think so, sir. — “Pratidwandi” (The Adversary), 1970 The most fundamental debate for our youth is the choice between Android,...

-The Hindu Though outlawed in 1976, bonded labour lives and thrives in the State, as highlighted by the Sivaji Ganesan committee. However, the State continues to maintain an Ostrich-like attitude, failing to conduct periodic surveys and implement rehabilitation programmes The State of Karnataka in 2000 woke up to news about a certain medieval-era brutality being committed on bonded labourers, when the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha unearthed the case of five labourers being...