-Hindustan Times The Centre’s attempt to bulldoze the states on agriculture weakens the entire reform process Days after Parliament passed the controversial agriculture bills, several state governments have begun crafting strategies to avoid its implementation. This is a predictable consequence of a process of law-making that undermines India’s federal consensus. Agriculture is a state subject. The passage of national laws, on a state subject, marks a rupture in India’s federal trajectory. There is...

-News18.com The new National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020 hereafter) has rekindled the debate on the various kinds of problems in Indian education. One of the problems which has bothered me is the need for reforms in rural government elementary schools, more specifically the need for addressing the problem of sub-optimal schooling experiences and poor learning outcomes of poor rural children. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 brought out...

-The Indian Express We hope that our judiciary will exercise its immense constitutional power to lead and supervise a free, fair and speedy investigation into the heinous allegation of brutal rape and the completely illegal forced cremation and illegal detention by the UP police. People who died of the plague or some other contagious disease were carried out of the village and their bodies were burnt without the dignity of a proper...

-Press release by National Coalition for Strengthening SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (NCSPA) dated 1st October 2020 Despite explicit constitutional provision and guidelines, the Dalit community across India remain the worst sufferers of the scourge of the caste system, which perpetuates not an only social hierarchy but also institutional discrimination and social exclusion. In the last few months under Covid-19 pandemic, India witnessed an alarming increase in the cases...

-The Indian Express The idea of a Minimum Support Price for crops came first from a visiting US soil scientist and fertiliser expert The institution of ‘mandis’ is as old as markets where wholesale trading in primary produce has been taking place since time immemorial. APMCs or Agricultural Produce Market Committees are of more recent vintage and the creation of Sir Chhotu Ram. In 1939, the legendary farmer leader, as Development Minister in...