KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-Hindustan Times The survey picked Nagapattinam, Madurai and Tiruppur specifically to see how it benefits women in various sectors, such as agriculture, trade and industry. The survey was conducted in August with more than a 1000 frequent travellers and a report was released by the government on Saturday   Chennai: A survey by Tamil Nadu’s planning commission has revealed that the government’s flagship scheme providing free bus travel for women in state-owned buses...

-Hindustan Times In their plea, former bureaucrats MG Devasahayam, Somasundar Burra, and Aditi Mehta referred to the Registration of Electors Rules that allow the Registration Officer to entertain any objection, hold a summary inquiry and rectify any errors without hearing or notifying the affected party. The Supreme Court has directed the Centre and the Election Commission of India (ECI) to respond in four weeks to public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the rule...

-Hindustan Times Successive governments have “completely destroyed” the independence of the Election Commission of India (ECI) by ensuring no chief Election Commissioner (CEC) gets the full six-year term to head the poll body since 1996, a Constitution bench in the Supreme Court lamented on Tuesday, adding that absence of a law for appointment of Election Commissioners (ECs) has resulted in an “alarming trend”. The five-judge bench further remarked that the silence of...

-The Telegraph ‘Ill-timed, improper’ amendment notified by Centre a bid by ruling party to take ‘undue advantage’, says former economic affairs secretary New Delhi: Former Union economic affairs secretary E.A.S. Sarma has asked the Election Commission of India to prevent the fresh sale of electoral bonds, as allowed under an amendment notified by the Centre on Monday that he described as “ill-timed, improper” and as a bid by the ruling party to...