-Firstpost.com After the UPA-II released its self-congratulatory 79-page ‘Report card to the People', National Advisory Council (NAC) member and leading social activist Aruna Roy has come down heavily on the government for its poor performance in the social sector. Roy, an instrumental force behind the Right to Information Act, criticised the government for stalling on essential legislations such as the Food Security Bill, the Land Acquisition Bill and the Lokpal Bill. Roy spoke...

-The Business Standard Govt should streamline its free medicines plan The Centre is reportedly going to shelve a plan to procure generic drugs for free supply to patients throughout the country. This is a serious error. Reportedly, states will instead be asked to do so; but, if a perceived inability to procure, stock and distribute these drugs is the reason for backtracking on the plan, how precisely will states be free of...

Argumentative Indians are at it again! After sparring over the poverty line and the actual number of poor, India's renowned econoMISts have fired up a fresh debate over the extent of malnutrition. In the earlier debate, the Planning ComMISsion ‘reduced' poverty on paper disregarding NSSO and official committees, including the NCEUS, which determined that 77% Indians survived on less than Rs 20 a day. Columbia university econoMISt Arvind Panagariya has...

-The Telegraph The sudden arrest of Amway India's top brass on Monday has focused the spotlight on the crumbling fault lines and the grey areas in the demarcation between some of the world's best-known direct selling companies and the dodgy Ponzi schemes that proMISe huge returns to gullible investors and have lately grabbed all the sensational headlines in Bengal. William S. Pinckney, managing director of Amway India, and two directors of the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: If the dictum 'you can't manage what you can't measure' is true, then the government has an unsure grip over at least half the 13 flagship schemes worth nearly Rs 2 lakh crore annually, almost 80% of the total spend on central schemes. The government is unable to efficiently collate information to assess whether some of the 13 key flagship schemes are producing the results for...