-The Indian Express Union government must address structural issues in agricultural policy, allow states greater autonomy. Farmers from across the country are out on Delhi’s streets agitating just as the deliberations for the 2018 budget are beginning and it’s time to seek solutions to the structural issues that plague the system. The “one-size-fits-all” policy created for the farm sector is self-destructive in design and programmes meant to double farmer incomes are collapsing. The...

-The Indian Express Demonetisation was part of a political imagination that is closer to a technocratic authoritarianism. Revolutions are often paradoxical things. In the minds of the revolutionary, they conjure up images of radical change. But reality is more recalcitrant. It makes a fool of the revolutionary, exacerbating those very things that the revolution seeks to change. Demonetisation has turned out to be no different. It was a populist measure, done in...

-The Indian Express In the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, public sector banks and regional rural banks have opened 29.13 crore accounts as against 96 lakh accounts by the private banks. Chennai: The All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC), the largest body representing over 3,25,000 officers, opposed the Centre’s move making Aadhaar mandatory and forcing bank officers to do Aadhar seeding. When the matter is subjudice in the...

-The Times of India Many members of the Niti Aayog's newly constituted Working Group on Nutrition have significant conflicts of interests. Several are representatives of international agencies, which have close ties to multinational food companies including Nestle, Hindustan Unilever, Coca Cola, Monsanto, Mars and Ajinomoto, and which have been pushing packaged therapeutic food to address malnutrition. The government has repeatedly clarified that packaged energy dense food is against India's policy on...

-Press release from People's Budget Initiative (PBI)/ Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) New Delhi: The coalition -- People’s Budget Initiative (PBI) with a membership of diverse organisations working across different sectors in the country, organized a national convention on pressing issues (such as budgetary allocations for social sectors, transparency etc.) deserving a closer scrutiny and a larger public debate. The two-day workshop entitled ‘Civil Society Budget Work and Governance...