-The Indian Express These enterprises — whom she broadly categorises as ‘rural commercial capital’ — enjoy privileged access to formal credit networks. In her insightful study of the working of agricultural markets in West Bengal, British development studies scholar Barbara Harris-White has documented in detail how trade in farm produce is controlled through a web of rural and semi-urban agro commercial enterprises. These enterprises — whom she broadly categorises as ‘rural commercial capital’...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Civil society group All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) has sent legal notices to Niti Aayog CEO and secretaries to the health ministry, department of pharmaceuticals and department of industrial policy and promotion over their talks to cut powers of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority. The group has termed the move “anti-national” and “anti-people”, adding that it affects an ongoing case at the Supreme Court over various...

-The Hindu As I write this column, my gaze is on the post-Deepavali haze that has enveloped Delhi. As a third-generation asthmatic, with a fourth-generation asthmatic daughter, it is set me wondering whether returning to Delhi, the city of my birth, from the United States a decade ago was a mistake. This haze is smog (smoke + fog), a hazardous mix of noxious gases and very high levels of suspended respirable...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The country’s human rights watchdog has issued notices to the Madhya Pradesh government and state police for the shooting of eight Islamist prisoners who had escaped from a Bhopal jail. The National Human Rights Commission sent notices the state’s chief secretary, director general of police, director general of prisons & inspector general of prisons for the killing alleged activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India. The men fled...

-The Hindu New Delhi: As videos of the alleged police encounter of eight SIMI men who broke out of the Bhopal Central Jail continue to raise demands for a judicial probe, a series of Supreme Court judgments show that the law is heavily, even fatally, loaded against police officers found guilty of 'fake encounters'. One of the judgments even recommends death penalty to “trigger-happy” cops and compares them to Nazi war criminals...