-The Indian Express According to officials, this is a big shift in the work demand process—separating demand generating and implementing agencies—and is likely to change the way MGNREGA functions in the state. In what the Jharkhand government says is the first such move by any state, the Rural Development Ministry has started capturing work demand under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) through its social audit unit (SAU), generating nearly...

-The Hindu The UN Secretary General’s recent advice to India amounts to asking for its virtual de-industrialisation and stagnation The UN Secretary General António Guterres’s call for India to give up coal immediately and reduce emissions by 45% by 2030 is a call to de-industrialise the country and abandon the population to a permanent low-Development trap. Piling on the pressure In an extraordinary move in climate diplomacy, Mr. Guterres, delivering the Darbari Seth Memorial...

-The Telegraph The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has estimated the loss of 21 million salaried jobs between April and August, weeks after suggesting that 18.9 million salaried jobs were lost between April and July The Centre has said it does not accept survey data provided by “non-government agencies”, the assertion coming at a time independent agencies have reported enormous job losses in the country while the government has sat tight on...

-The Hindu The reported contraction of the economy is likely an underestimate for reasons of omission and commission According to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of the Government of India on August 31, 2020, real quarterly GDP contracted by a whopping 23.9% between April-June 2019 and April-June 2020. This magnitude of real GDP decline is unprecedented since the country started publishing quarterly GDP estimates in 1996. This...

-The Telegraph Modi govt formally confirms that India took two loans totalling Rs 9,202 crore from a Beijing-based multilateral Development bank in the thick of the border standoff June 15: Chinese troops kill 20 Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley. June 19: India signs a loan agreement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for $750 million (Rs 5,521 crore) to support measures undertaken under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY). China...