-PTI NEW DELHI: Seeking to stem the flow of black money in polls, the Election Commission has urged the government to amend laws to ban anonymous contributions of Rs 2,000 and above made to political parties. There is no constitutional or statutory prohibition on receipt of anonymous donations by political parties. But there is an "indirect partial ban" on anonymous donations through the requirement of declaration of donations under section 29C of...

-TheWire.in A report by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy found that on an average, a law took 261 days to come into force and 14% of laws took a whopping 1000 days to become implementable. The term ‘legal reform’ has caught the imagination of policymakers, the judiciary and the general public, taking everyone by storm. Suddenly, everybody is clamouring to usher in new laws and weed out redundant ones. The government...

-Frontline.in Interview with Utsa Patnaik, professor emerita of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. By T.K. RAJALAKSHMI THE FALLOUT of the decision of the National Democratic Alliance government to demonetise currency of higher denominations has been felt across all sections of people. There are concerns that it will lead to an overall economic slowdown given the acute shortage of currency for industrial and agricultural operations. The impact on agriculture and those dependent on agriculture...

-The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement demonetising high denomination notes on November 8, 2016, will do little to address the prime objective of flushing out black money but will adversely affect the economy in the short term, especially the informal sector, which is predominant in India, says M. Govinda Rao, a Member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission and Emeritus Professor, National Institute of Public...

-TheWire.in The spectacle of ‘fixing’ India’s illegal economy is not only harming common citizens but also turning small investors away from financial markets. Depending on who is talking, the demonetisation of higher value currency notes by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has either been described by commentators as a ‘bold move’, ‘landmark policy’, ‘game-changer’ and even a ‘political masterstroke’ or has been labelled the single most high-risk political gamble undertaken since the...