-CNN-IBN It's lunch time in Bundelkhand's Gudrampur village. Shyama knows the four hungry children waiting patiently will soon be restless. She is glad her sister-in-law Chunni Bai is helping. She is expecting her third child and pregnancy makes her tire easily. In the ninth month now, it's impossible to trek the 10 km circuit to collect firewood from Kadhaili and then sell it at the Fateganj market. She would make Rs 25...

-Livemint.com The government relies on for-profit big business to deliver public goods despite their inability to deliver Can we listen to the budget as an annual public statement by the government of its economic and social philosophy and intent? The centre abandoned five-year plans that earlier laid down a road map of where government policies are headed. The budget, then, is an important reality check of whether the government is literally...

-The Hindu As the government pushes for ‘Make in India’, it could begin by unmaking the damage the post-1991 reforms inflicted on domestic industry. This year marks 25 years since the so-called “economic reforms” were launched in July 1991. By now, broad contours of the policies and practices that characterised such reforms are well known, viz. radical deregulation, marketisation and privatisation of the industrial, technological and financial sectors, and an across-the-board...

-Livemint.com As the country still continues to debate the beef ban and its impact on agrarian distress, data shows that what’s really being hit is the sex ratio of the bovine population New Delhi: Bulls are missing, both in India’s equity markets and in its fields. As the country still continues to debate the beef ban and its impact on agrarian distress, data shows that what’s really being hit is the...

-Huffington Post Of all the arguments that have been raised this turbulent spring in our country, one stands out as egregiously vulgar. It evokes in me the moral equivalent of the middle-ear reflex to high intensity sounds, which has a special place in the hierarchy of unpleasant sensations. It's the tax nationalism argument. In essence, it's this: How dare students benefitting from subsidized education funded by OUR tax money hold opinions that...