-The Hindu Business Line Kerala’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the subject of international conversation about public health systems. Piloting Kerala’s fight against the pandemic is the State’s Health Minister and CPI(M)’s Central Committee member KK Shailaja who speaks exclusively to BusinessLine about the criticality of publicly-run healthcare and how the need of the hour is to nationalise the system. Excerpts: * What are the lessons to be learnt from...

-The Indian Express The apex court refused to interfere with the Centre's and Reserve Bank of India (RBI's) decision to not extend the loan moratorium beyond August 31 last year, saying it is a policy decision. Refusing to interfere with the government and RBI’s decision to not extend the loan moratorium period beyond Aug 31, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said it cannot do a judicial review of Centre’s financial policy decision...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-Article-14.com In 2018, India diluted environmental safeguards when it ‘standardised’ or made simpler permissions for industry by expert panels. Now, as the government pushes the use of dirtier domestic coal by power plants, further dilution is underway, increasing health risks and imperilling the environment New Delhi: Standardised conditions will be “monitorable”. They will bring “uniformity”. They will help in “expediting the process of environmental clearance without compromising environmental norms”. These are claims the ministry of...

-PTI/ Business Standard The third pre-testing of the five surveys would be conducted in next ten days and then the studies would begin across the country by the Labour Bureau The Labour Bureau is all set to launch its five major surveys, including on migrant and domestic workers, across the country by April 1 as two out of three mandated pre-testings of the studies yielded "encouraging and positive results". The third pre-testing of...