-TheWire.in Can the Union government exercise its sovereignty in extending food subsidies to states during a historic crisis despite an enlarged fiscal deficit? Some states have started responding to the Supreme Court’s directions on ensuring food security, cash transfers and transportation for migrant workers. It is time the Union government steps up. In a suo moto hearing on May 13, the Supreme Court observed that migrant workers have once again been left in...

-The Indian Express With a more accurate way of measuring GDP growth, the pace of recovery is much slower in real terms Imagine driving a car whose speedometer cannot tell the current speed but only relative to what it was four hours ago. Apart from the comical encounters with police when stopped for speeding and the predicament in defining a “speed limit”, there is a more fundamental problem it would create. The...

Large dams that cause environmental degradation and large-scale displacement, among other things, have been opposed in India by civil society organisations (CSOs), such as Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM) and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). A recently published study by the United Nations University's Canada-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health along with other partner organisations reveals that tens of thousands of existing large...

-The Indian Express What needs to be ensured is that the recovery is not hamstrung by damaged household and SME balance sheets because of the extended loss of wages and incomes. This requires extensive income support now. Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees, and at other times the trees themselves become the story. That seems to be the case with India’s 3Q20 GDP print. Some have exulted over headline growth printing...

-Press release by Vikalp Sangam (vikalpsangam.org), dated 5th December, 2020 Vikalp Sangam (vikalpsangam.org) -- a conglomeration of 60+ active CSOs and members -- in its press release dated 5th December, 2020 has stated that the newly enacted farm laws of the Centre will lead to further land alienation (landlessness) and destitution of the peasantry because the laws permit, in thinly disguised form, the unsparing loot by the lobby of agri-businesses and...