-The Economic Times Recently, we were witness to a noisy spat between economists Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati. Some commentators linked this to a Congress-versus-BJP fight over development models. Sen, the advocate of investment in education, health and nutrition as necessary for economic growth, was presumed to speak for the Congress. Bhagwati, the proponent of growthfirst model, was seen to be batting for the BJP. Indeed, Bhagwati has cited Gujarat as...

-Down to Earth blog Simply put, the sand mafias originated because the sand business is low investment, low risk and high returns, notwithstanding few roadblocks like Ms Durga Shakti Nagpal or the media taking up her cause as a cause celebre! For they know well that with raw material (sand) in easy reach and end user (realty sector) little bothered wherefrom or legality of the ware, business as usual, no matter, shall...

-The Hindu Unlike many countries that have passed laws to protect citizens' privacy, the Indian state is collecting more and more information about private individuals under various pretexts and restricting their right to access their own information Does a serving employee of a premier intelligence agency have the right to inspect his own biodata which that agency handed over to another public authority? Then again, does a former employee of that agency...

-The Hindustan Times   Food minister KV Thomas on Wednesday introduced a National Food Security Bill, which proposes to give the country's three-fourth population the right to highly-subsidised food, which will replace the government's Ordinance. Thomas introduced the fresh Bill after withdrawing an earlier one. The government had last month passed a food security ordinance, a provision to enact laws when Parliament is not in session, to give 67% of Indians, or about 800...

-The Hindu     While denying voting rights to undertrials contradicts the principle that a person is innocent until proved guilty, disenfranchising convicts will aggravate their alienation from society The Supreme Court's decision last month in Chief Election Commissioner v. Jan Chaukidar has attracted significant attention for its perceived potential to address the criminalisation of politics. Justices A.K Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhaya ruled that since one of the conditions to be a candidate under...