-The Hindu Over the last few decades, intellectual property rules have served as a lethal barrier to the right to access healthcare Even an unprecedented pandemic can do little, it appears, to upset the existing global regime governing monopoly rights over the production and distribution of life-saving drugs. If anything, since the onset of COVID-19, we’ve only seen a reaffirmation of intellectual property rules that have served as a lethal barrier to...

-The Hindu With no ownership of land or houses and denial of minimum wage, lakhs of workers continue to live in a vicious cycle of bondage plucking Over the past few elections, Benam Oraon, a tea garden worker at Nagrakata Tea Estate in West Bengal, attended several election meetings and kept a note of the promises which political parties made. This election, however, he is contesting the polls as a candidate from...

-The Hindu A year after lakhs of workers made their way back to their home States after the nationwide lockdown was announced in March 2020, their condition has not changed much. With State governments announcing lockdowns and curfews in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases, migrant workers could once again be staring at loss of wages and lack of social protections, labour union leaders and activists said on Thursday. A year after lakhs...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-ThePrint.in Although the CAA has sparked huge protest among the Muslim minority, it seems to be attracting voters from the Namasudra community towards the BJP. The Namasudra community of West Bengal is gradually moving towards the Bharatiya Janata Party, evident from the latter’s win in constituencies dominated by the caste group. In fact, the BJP’s entry in the state was marked by its victory in Namasudra-dominated Basirhat Dakshin assembly constituency in 2014....