-The Hindu Online media companies don’t take responsibility for their content, he says Sam Pitroda, regarded as the father of India’s telecom revolution, says that he is deeply concerned with the way social media is being misused globally to propagate lies, hatred and false ideas. In an interview, Mr. Pitroda says that in India also, social media has not been used effectively and technology is not meant to be misapplied. He says...

-HuffingtonPost.com A safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable populations. Recently there has been a lot of debate in academic and policy circles about mainstreaming climate concerns in development programs in order to build the resilience of vulnerable communities. One such development initiative is the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), whose main objective is to reduce rural poverty by providing a legal guarantee of 100 days' paid labour...

-TheWire.in The corporate sector is responsible for 70% of the country’s NPAs, but their loans are being waived off while waiving farming loans is still being frowned upon. The Gujarat government gave a loan of Rs 456.79 crore to the Tatas to set up the Nano plant at Sanand, near Ahmedabad. The Gujarat government has acknowledged that the massive loan was given at an interest of 0.1%, to be paid back in...

-The Financial Express The one irrefutable lesson from MGNREGA, is that once introduced, there will be no going back India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. In terms of Gini coefficient, i.e., measure of income inequity, India ranks a dismal 135 out of 187 countries. This means that most of the prosperity that an increasingly economically liberalised India is seeing, belongs primarily to the top-income percentiles. One in...

-The Hindu Business Line It should have considered universal basic income. But sadly, budgets are not seen as a means to meet socio-economic goals The Union Budget attracts considerable media hype and debate. Democracy, if understood as a contract between the state and its citizens, may have to use the budgetary process to ensure not only prosperity for all, but justice or fairness to the most disadvantaged among them as well. A rational...