-The Hindu It violates the basic tenets of India’s democracy by keeping the knowledge of the ‘right to know’ from citizens and voters The Supreme Court, after a brief hearing on March 24, reserved orders on the question of whether or not to stay the electoral bond scheme, ahead of the upcoming State elections. For the last three years, electoral bonds have been the dominant method of political party funding in India....

-The Hindu If passed in its current form, the NCT of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021 will strip the elected government of almost all its powers. It must be referred to a select committee and not passed in haste. The political theorist Jean Louis De Lolme had once famously observed that “British Parliament can do everything but make a man a woman, a woman a man”. The English statesman Lord Burleigh had remarked...

-Scroll.in Going against conventional wisdom, the Indian middle class is not a source of liberalism. A profound contradiction lies at the heart of contemporary India’s political economy. On the one hand, it embraces economic liberalism. In September 2020, it legislated laws aimed at liberalising agriculture from state-guaranteed protections. The recent budget, passed in February, was high on promises of accelerating divestment of public sector undertakings. On the other hand, however, this enthusiasm...

-The Telegraph A day later, Congress and TMC, which has the chairmanship of the committee, said it was a misrepresentation and evidence of the BJP’s “dirty tricks department in action ” New Delhi: Opposition parties were left scrambling for an explanation after a parliamentary panel in which they had representation green-signalled one of the three contentious farm laws in a report tabled in Parliament on Friday. In the report tabled in the Lok...

-The Indian Express In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on whether the number of lakes has declined substantially across the country over recent years, MoEFCC Prakash Javadekar said rapid urbanisation, development activities and anthropogenic pressures have stressed water bodies. Over Rs 1,000 crore has been released for the conservation of 157 wetlands in the country under the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Eco-systems (NPCA), Union Minister...