largely picked by women are negligible and most of the royalty cost is cost of safeguarding the produce. The royalty for ‘higher value produce’ like lac, gum karaya and other produce which needs implements and are collected is higher in nominal terms but a smaller proportion of the minimum support price(MSP).Further, the MSP recommended by the expert institution (i.e. TERI) is higher than the one declared by the government in 2017. Therefore, even in this unfair method of the determination of prices, the union government has resorted to a price squeeze.

SIXTY per cent of India’s population is very young, below 25 years of age. This young India has no memory of the pre-liberalisation era during which state policy was broadly oriented towards the welfare of the people. Post-1991, a calibrated change in public consciousness was made to take place through commercialisation of public needs and corporatisation of governance. Media and technology have played a strategic role in this transformation.

THE ministry of housing and urban affairs (MOHUA) has released first draft of the National Urban Policy Framework (NUPF). The draft summary explains the philosophical outline of the need for drafting such a document. It is considered that this document will become a guide for the future of urban planning in India. The NUPF draft is prepared in a hurried manner to brush aside the outcome of the failure of urban policies of the BJP government.   The new urban policy relies its basis on the 10 basic foundations or ‘philosophical principles’.

Interrupting the presentation by a student, the prime minister sought to take potshots at his political rivals. In an uncalled for and totally insensitive response, the prime minister tried to portray all dyslexic people in poor light. It is all the more unpardonable as it comes from a person holding such a high office. And this disgusting attitude comes from a person who had equated disability with divinity and coined the term “divyang”. Even during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign Narendra Modi had used terms like blind, deaf, lame etc to belittle his rivals.

WITH the elections in the offing, different groups – the Free Software Movement of India, Association for Democratic Reforms, Common Cause, etc – have raised a key issue: how to stop the Indian elections from being distorted by big digital platforms and the enormous influence they exercise over us today. And as “influence” on these platforms can be bought, will Indian elections, already plagued by money power, suffer even further? Added to this, is the enormous ecosystem of fake news, which the BJP, the RSS and its “parivar” has built over the last few years.