-The Indian Express In his second term, Prime Minister Modi can ensure better urbanisation through greater devolution of power, and finances, to urban local bodies. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his second term with an even larger political mandate, it is time to reflect on what should be the priorities in fixing our cities. The scale of the challenge is massive whether we look at the availability of clean drinking...

-The Telegraph What is most worrying is that some of the top causes of these deaths are preventable infectious diseases A progress report does not always bring cheer. A Lancet study showed that death of children under five in India went down from 2.5 million in the year 2000 to 1.2 million in 2015. Unfortunately, this still meant that India had the highest child mortality rate in the world in 2015. The...

-The New Indian Express Narendra Modi’s overwhelming win has pushed the burning issues around agrarian distress on the back burner; but once the victory euphoria dies down, these will be pushing for recognition again. A crash in prices of farm produce and the demand for remunerative prices, and waiver of back-breaking loans are some of the issues staring the new government in the face. The interim budget recognised the distress by...

-Newsclick.in The oil marketing companies are arguing that the continuous INCrease in prices this week is due to the 15 days trail in domestic prices of fuel as compared to international markets. As a result of the regular hike sINCe the past six days, there is an INCrease of 0.50 paisa for petrol and 1.04 paisa for diesel all over India. The price of petroleum products had been kept at a moderate...

-Livemint.com * English speakers are richer, more educated and more likely to be upper caste, data from the Lok Foundation survey shows * Hindi is both the most widely spoken first language and second language in India English speakers are very much India’s elite, and their proportion may be shrinking, new data on the demographic profile of English language speakers in India suggests. The 2011 Census showed English is the primary language—mother tongue—of 256,000...