GS2: Governance
- A blow against punitive constitutionalism The J&K High Court’s verdict on the Beggary Act rejects the state’s fettering of guaranteed constitutional freedoms
- Should we do away with subsidies for higher education? (TH) Inclusiveness and equity are very important characteristics of a good public institution.
- "Only 4 of 82 Secretaries are from SC/ST communities (TH) There are only 11 SC/ST faculty members at the 20 IIMs; no SC/ST faculty at all in 12 IIMs including IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Kolkata.
- Use quota policy in faculty hiring, govt tells IITs, IIMs (Mint)" How students are selected is an important measure of excellence of an institute. Though the selection criteria can be debated, caste can’t be one of them.
- Why e-governance apps for citizens need improvement (Mint) UMANG is just one of the apps launched under the government’s Digital India initiative that aims at making government services accessible to citizens on their fingertips
- Making MGNREGS More Useful (ToI) Individual Beneficiary Schemes which accounted for 21.4% of the total works in 2014-15 now account for 67.29%.
GS3: Economy
- Expedient exit (TH) Disinvestment can only be a stopgap measure in plugging the gaping fiscal hole
- Telling Numbers: Countries that dominated tourist arrivals in India in last 3 years (IE) Among individual states, Tamil Nadu saw the most visits by foreign tourists in 2018 — over 60 lakh in that year.
- Govt plans to use data from FASTags to monitor traffic, rework road toll policy (Mint) Data from FASTags can be used to monitor traffic and track the movement of vehicles (in the highways), which will help us propose appropriate changes in the existing toll policy,
GS3: Environment
- Avian botulism reason for bird deaths (TH) The Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly, on Thursday confirmed avian botulism — a neuro-muscular illness caused by a toxin….