-The Indian Express Anganwadi workers, teachers, nurses are paid low salaries, their work devalued Frontline workers providing basic services through various government programmes form the backbone of the country’s social welfare system. India’s ability to achieve its SDGs or to have a healthy skilled workforce that contributes towards economic progress or social and human development depends to a large extent on the performance of teachers, nurses, anganwadi workers, panchayat secretaries and...

-The Hindu Sluggish health spending can be reversed with a substantial increase in the allocation for health in the Union Budget India’s neighbours, in the past two decades, have made great strides on the development front. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan now have better health indicators than India, which has puzzled many. How could these countries make the great escape from the diseases of poverty earlier than their much bigger neighbour? India’s...

-The Hindu The new CRZ notification of 2018 now reads as a rejection of science and the anticipated impacts from climate change In late December, the government approved the Draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2018, which had been earlier circulated by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). The CRZ consists of designated areas along the coast that are regulated by the government. The government introduced the new CRZ...

-Frontline.in Interview with Aruna Roy. ARUNA ROY is a well-known social and political activist. A former Indian Administrative Service officer, she resigned from the IAS in 1975 and has since worked with the most oppressed in society. Aruna Roy’s observation on government service is indicative of her future concerns: “Everyone calls it an elite service; I always felt the discourse should be a bit better than what it was. I was shocked...

-The Hindu Business Line Farmers are wrongly blamed for high power consumption. They need incentives for growing appropriate crops Agitations and loan waivers have brought the economics of agriculture in focus. Much of the discussion is about minimum support price, farmers’ net incomes and debt repayment capacities. However, the inputs side of the issue, especially the role and sustainability of subsidised inputs, also need equal attention if agriculture distress is to be...