-Hindustan Times Be it growth, enhanced investment, life expectancy, literacy, and health, Bangladesh is doing well Frankly, I blame Henry Kissinger. Way back in the 1970s, he called Bangladesh “an international basket case”. At the time, no doubt, it was. Television images of the frequent devastating floods it suffered confirmed this characterisation. So the description stuck. Today, Bangladesh is a different country. The world may be slow in changing its opinion —...

-Newsclick.in The latest education budget needs condemnation but got kudos. In recent times there has been growing discontent in universities and colleges over rising fees and cost of education. The growing worries about access to higher education for students of modest means extend beyond this, to the steady privatisation of higher education. Already, according to the government’s own data, nearly 77% of the colleges, accounting for about two-thirds of the students, are...

-Down to Earth This is because agriculture in India is largely dependent on chemicals including pesticides and their usage has a huge impact on the health of humans, animals, bio-diversity and the environment Pesticides are regulated in India through the Insecticides Act, 1968 and Insecticides Rules, 1971. The experience in administering this Act over the last five decades has exposed certain gaps which spurred the need to propose a new law. The Pesticide...

-Down to Earth The record-breaking vegetable price rise indicates an era of high food inflation in coming years Rising prices of food items, particularly that of vegetables, have spiked retail inflation to a 68-month high of 7.59 per cent in January 2020, according to the National Statistical Office. While the inflation figure captured headlines, a crucial analysis of the reasons behind this sustained increase in food prices slipped public attention. Extreme weather events...

-Frontline.in The Budget lacks any serious effort to address the main issues of unemployment, agrarian distress and falling incomes, revealing a high level of official insensitivity. A Budget during a time of recession, increasing unemployment, agrarian distress, falling incomes, demand constraint and malnutrition would have done well to first acknowledge the mess that policies have created and then taken steps to provide employment, boost rural incomes, increase purchasing power and thereby demand. Coming...