-The Hindu In the present state of the economy, when there is excess capacity in manufacturing, adequate stocks of foodgrain and the inflation rate is trending downwards, there is an opportune moment for a public investment-centred fiscal expansion Over the past eight months, the government has issued some strong statements on the economy and taken some bold steps aimed at transforming it. As it prepares to present its first real budget we...

-The Hindu The report of the High-Level Committee for reviewing environmental laws has a misplaced focus on speedy project clearances and wrongly attributes their delays to environmental laws The report of the High-Level Committee (HLC) on a review of environmental laws may no longer be in the news, but its potential for impacting environmental governance in the country has not diminished. That potential will become real soon enough. A note of caution...

-Financial Chronicle From the inner recesses of Chattisgarh to the upper crevices of Sikkim, a look at how MGNREGA initiatives are changing lives The large blackboard outside the police station reads like a rate list. There are different monetary awards for Naxalites' surrender with different weaponry, the highest, Rs 4.5 lakh, for surrender with a light machine gun, Rs 3 lakh with an AK 47, and only Rs 30,000 with a 12...

The Hindu In the urgency to grant industry its due with promises of ‘Make in India,' the marginalised cannot continue to be victims of grave policy neglect and continuing alienation For some years now, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)has been perceived as a roadblock to development or a facilitator for the industry depending on which side you are on. Former Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan's recent letter to Sonia Gandhi...

-GRISTMedia.com In the course of my work as part of a team set up to look into the socio-economic status of Adivasi communities, there were several things I learned about the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and the amendments to it. Here are some important questions about land and the Act that we should be asking: * What is the State's relationship to land and its citizens? This a key question - and one...