-The Hindu Better education is not leading to better job opportunities, marriage prospects or freedom of movement Abigail Adams, wife of the second President of the U.S. and mother of the sixth President, wrote to her husband, “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion.” As last year’s #MeToo movement and Sabarimala protests showed, perhaps Indian women are echoing her and are...

-The Indian Express There are substantial inequalities even within Dalits. In addition to the 15 per cent quota, the community should also have reservation based on socioeconomic criteria. Reservations are sometimes criticised in a constructive manner by analysts who argue that quotas are cornered by a few jatis at the expense of those who “really need them”. Among Dalits, the Jatavs of Uttar Pradesh and the Mahars of Maharashtra have been...

-The Indian Express I think packaging a significant UBIS with a simultaneous increase in the taxes on the rich will help macro-economic stability, apart from assuaging the poor who will face some of the price rise in commodities or services, when subsidies are withdrawn. After my last op-ed in this paper (The safety net of the future) several readers, intrigued by the idea of a Universal Basic Income Supplement (UBIS) proposed...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

-The Hindu Instead of addressing inequality, the 10% quota for economically weaker sections creates huge anxieties If the number of demands for implementing reforms is any guide, India’s reservation system is clearly in disarray. However, it is unlikely that the recently passed Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, 2019, creating a 10% quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS), will serve as anything more than a band-aid. Given the deep inequalities prevalent in access to...