-The Indian Express   The southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala also figure prominently in the list. The year before the Lok Sabha elections, 2013, saw communal rioting incidents in the country jumping by nearly 25 per cent, with Uttar Pradesh, which witnessed major religious clashes in Muzaffarnagar, being the worst affected with 247 incidents compared to 118 in 2012. Data from the Union home ministry (MHA) shows that states such as UP,...

-Human Rights Watch New Delhi: School authorities in India persistently discriminate against children from marginalized communities, denying them their right to education, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Four years after an ambitious education law went into effect in India guaranteeing free schooling to every child ages 6 to 14, almost every child is enrolled, yet nearly half are likely to drop out before completing their elementary education. The...

A study by Jonathan Kennedy and Lawrence King, published in the Lancet journal Globalization and Health (2014) has found that liberalization of the agricultural sector in the early-1990s is responsible for the agrarian crisis and, therefore, farmers with certain socio-economic characteristics -- cash crops cultivators, with marginal landholdings, and debts-are particularly at risk of committing suicide. In short, the study detects that the differences in the structure of agricultural production explain...

-Live Mint     As a democracy matures, citizens become more willing to trust elected representatives to plan and take steps for the long-term growth and development One common complaint during this election has been that the election commission (EC) has to be consulted before the government and its regulatory agencies take any routine decision. Decisions relating to gas price hikes and bank licences all had to be cleared by the EC, whose over...

-Live Mint   FDI in retail and modernization of agriculture are two faces of the same coin In the season of elections animal spirits rule. India's equity markets have been ebullient for some time now. Spurred by a robust inflow of foreign investment capital, markets have reacted favourably. A lot now depends on the ability of the next government to enact meaningful structural reforms, especially in a sector such as agriculture that requires...