-Down to Earth The upcoming budget will see many schemes being brought under the rural employment programme; a direct cash transfer may be declared to top this up Union Budget 2020-21 will be a landmark for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Not just because India is going through an economic slowdown, but also for the fact that it will herald a countdown for many of his ambitious promises that come with prime ministerial...

-The Hindu The AAP will hope that the Assembly polls are a referendum on its government’s work Delhi, the Union Territory (UT) that hosts India’s capital city, might lag behind several States in total population and in area, but it enjoys outsize significance in terms of media and political attention. With 1.47 crore electors spread across the largely metropolitan national capital region and its pockets of rural voters in some suburbs, Delhi...

-The Indian Express What economists do not like to dwell on and what Karl Polanyi had noted a long time ago is that the economy is ultimately embedded in society, institutions and politics. When these are damaged, the economy begins to stall. With India’s deep political troubles, and protest marches breaking out all over the country, it may seem odd to be writing on economics. Yet, it would also be wrong not...

-The Indian Express Farmer unions need to expand the scope of their advocacy. Every day, a gold miner in Russia leaves a mine with a wheelbarrow full of sand. Every day, the guard thoroughly checks the sand. On his retirement day, the guard asks the worker, “I know you have been stealing something, but can’t figure out what it is”. The worker whispers back, “I wasn’t hiding anything in the sand,...

-Scroll.in The Electricity tariff would be more than double the average cost in India, an RTI query has revealed. On December 3, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by a Guwahati-based civil society group challenging an order passed by the National Green Tribunal order in July. The tribunal had cleared the decks for the resumption of construction of the contentious Lower Subansiri dam along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border. The Supreme Court’s endorsement...