-Hindustan Times While it is a welcome attempt to provide worth to housework, steps to reduce and redistribute such work are perhaps more important than asking for women’s unpaid work to be monetised, even notionally. They are important to ensure women’s rights and a sense of social justice. In January, the Supreme Court directed an insurance company to pay a higher claim amount by taking into account the unpaid work performed by...

-The Indian Express While the government has failed to deliver what was promised through the main budget and subsequent mini-budgets, estimates for next year also point to missed opportunities to use fiscal measures to revive the ailing economy. Expectations from Budget 2021 were high. Unsurprisingly so, for an economy battered by two years of slowdown, with a pre-pandemic annual growth rate of 4 per cent being a decadal low and the subsequent...

-The Indian Express The budget should have shown how serious it was about inclusive growth by announcing direct cash support to informal workers, circular migrants, agricultural labour, in addition to steady in-kind food transfers from the overflowing coffers of the FCI by making PDS universal. India’s annual budget, announced amidst much anticipation, focused on health as one of its key pillars. The fact that health and “inclusive growth” found their way into...

-The Hindu Alarming inequality, failing health care and border tensions loom large and the economic situation needs full attention As the country prepares to enter a new financial year after an ominous and gloomy 2020-21, there are great expectations about green shoots and the shape of the economic recovery. The havoc wreaked by the novel coronavirus pandemic on people’s lives and livelihoods is deep and enormous. The impact of the COVID-19 induced...

-TheWire.in The most important concern is that of increasing public spending. There are really only two numbers to look out for in the forthcoming budget: how much did the government claim to have spent in 2020-21, and how much does it intend to spend in 2021-22. These two numbers will determine whether there is any real hope of sustained macroeconomic recovery in the near future, notwithstanding any claims of green shoots or revival...