-The Indian Express The demonetisation deadline ends on December 30, and a day later, the I-T officers are expected to complete their scrutiny assessment work. New Delhi: Even if just one per cent of the total 40 crore bank accounts are red-flagged as “suspicious” during analysis by the Income-Tax department after sifting through data made available to it by banks, the tax officers would be saddled with a staggering 40 lakh...

-TheWire.in Jayalalithaa’s schemes – such as her canteens and baby care kits – may appear to be populist at first glance, but are actually quite entrenched in a welfare tradition. For development economists, Tamil Nadu offers many lessons in social democracy. The state has distinguished itself with visionary schemes – such as noon meals (known as the mid-day meal scheme nationally) and the Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy Maternity Benefits Scheme, which provides Rs...

-The Hindu Biodiversity integration into developmental plans is crucial for sustainable development In a ‘Mann Ki Baat’ broadcast recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his environmental concerns clear when he asked people to use Ganesha and Durga idols made of clay instead of plaster of Paris. His appeal is bound to stimulate our environmental consciousness and encourage the preservation of precious natural resources. We need to build on this appeal and follow...

-TheWire.in A report by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy found that on an average, a law took 261 days to come into force and 14% of laws took a whopping 1000 days to become implementable. The term ‘legal reform’ has caught the imagination of policymakers, the judiciary and the general public, taking everyone by storm. Suddenly, everybody is clamouring to usher in new laws and weed out redundant ones. The government...

-The Indian Express According to him, the currency shortage in the country is unlikely to ease any time in the near future. Mumbai: India’s former Chief Economic Advisor and former chief economist of the World Bank, Kaushik Basu has warned the government that the economy would take a turn for the worse next year besides greater suffering for people in the days ahead and of a new form of corruption building...