-Scroll.in At this critical juncture in the nation’s history, civil society cannot remain neutral. The Supreme Court of India’s verdict in the case of Indian Social Action Forum or challenging the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2011 on March 6, was one of the most decisive affirmations of civil society’s role as a political actor in India. The judgement reaffirmed the legitimate and critical role civil society has to play to ensure that...

-The Telegraph 'It is on the verge of losing status as a democracy due to shrinking space for media and civil society' More people are living under autocracies than under democracies across the world and India’s “steep decline” on democratic traditions despite electoral Politics is a contributing factor to the global surge in autocratisation. India has also been put among the top 10 autocratising countries. This is one of the conclusions of a study...

-TheWire.in In each of the four large South Asian nations, the response of the state to the pandemic has been shaped by long standing and underlying political faultlines. In parts one and two of this article, we have discussed the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, preparedness (in terms of health infrastructure), and the government’s public health responses to the pandemic in four South Asian countries. In this concluding part, we discuss two...

-Livemint.com * MGNREGS guarantees 100 days of work in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work * In 2019-20, which was considered a normal monsoon year without rural distress, 2.65 billion person days were created NEW DELHI: The Union government on Sunday injected an extra ₹40,000 crore into the national rural jobs programme, extending a helping hand to millions of rural poor, as well as...

-TheWire.in India’s economic package for MSMEs is far reaching and reformatory. But does the rubber meet the road, as they say? Politics does not oblige its players to adhere to the truth. But two things are a big no-no and better avoided. The first is trying to meet multiple objectives with one instrument or decision and the second is Tom Sawyer-ing. Mark Twain’s character had a knack of getting other people to see...