-Down to Earth There are prominent shortcomings in implementation, especially registration of workers and and collection and distribution of Cess The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic had widespread and devastating consequences to communities and enterprises in India and across the globe. However, the situation was particularly grim for the 453.6 million internal migrants in India, evidenced by the unprecedented ‘reverse migration’ witnessed during the pandemic.  Their vulnerabilities were exacerbated by the fact a...

-Livemint.com Real estate must contribute more to our economy and that calls for SECtoral reforms and cheap homes Over the past few weeks, the financial and economic world has been worried about the likely collapse of Evergrande, the world’s most-indebted real estate company. At the same time, the bigger issue of China’s dependence for growth on its real-estate SECtor remains. In a working paper titled, Peak China Housing, Kenneth S. Rogoff and Yuanchen...

-Hindustan Times The country has to develop and adopt more efficient crop production techniques along with favourable marketing policies and price support mechanism. The lack of an assured market is the main reason for the poor availability of pulses India is the largest producer of pulses. Since the population has low-income levels and people are largely vegetarian, pulses provide good quality protein, and they contribute significantly to the nutritional SECurity of the...

-Hindustan Times The BJP leadership has explicitly instructed the cadre to reinforce that the ongoing farm protests are “motivated” and an attempt to “destabilise” the country, a party functionary claimed The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has redoubled efforts to distance the farmer protests from the farm issues ahead of elections in states such as Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, where the demand from a SECtion of farmers’ for repealing the farm laws enacted...

-ThePrint.in From Jayalalithaa to Amarinder Singh, chief ministers throughout the years seem to have ignored the seniority principle in choosing chief SECretaries. The position of the chief SECretary is arguably the most crucial civil service post in any state. Normally, the senior-most serving Indian Administrative Service officer in the cadre is expected to be posted and officers senior to them, who are on central deputation, can be overlooked. Apart from suitability, the...