-National Herald While Americans take themselves as citizens and demand responsibility and accountability from power, Indians are still slavish, says Kannan Gopinathan, who resigned from IAS What happened in Washington DC at the Capitol Hill Building was watched in horror and everybody said, “Look democracy can fail even in America.” To me it looked like the triumph of American democracy. Attempts to overturn the Presidential election failed. State after state stood up to...

-The Indian Express Mary Lawlor was speaking at an online event marking 100 days of Swamy’s incarceration. United Nations Special Rapporteur on the SITuation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor Friday said India does not “properly protect human rights defenders”. She also said she had written to the Indian government in November, “raising concerns” over Jesuit priest Stan Swamy’s arrest in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case, but had not yet received a...

-The Hindu In the event of further judicial intervention, there are grounds and an opportunity for the government to reviSIT the laws With the Supreme Court of India staying the operation of the farm laws and setting up a committee of experts to negotiate with the government and the farmers, the agitation being carried on by the farmers is entering a new phase. The farmers’ unions have not reacted favourably to the...

-The Indian Express The Union budget should focus on enhancing credit flows to the small and marginal farmers, increase investment in health and education. The first advance estimates of GDP for 2020-21 are much better than the earlier market consensus and shows the inherent strengths of the Indian economy. The economy is expected to contract by 7.7 per cent implying a COVID-19 induced loss of Rs 9.61 lakh crore in real terms...

-Hindustan Times This entails addressing prevailing systemic deficiencies along with managing the added burden of Covid-19. India’s health sector requires a two-fold intervention by the government. The extraordinary SITuation created by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has exposed the vulnerabilities of our fragile health-care system, demands an equally extraordinary intervention by the government. The expectation from the Union Budget 2021-22 is for the central government to lead from the front in the health...