-The Indian Express In the bail order, Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana noted that the accused had "absolutely no criminal antecedents". Ravi was granted bail on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and two sureties of like amount. Twenty-two-year-old activist Disha Ravi, who was arrested in connection with a toolkit on the farmer protests that was tweeted by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, was granted bail by a Sessions Court in Delhi...

-The Hindu The government’s announced fiscal policy stance and the fiscal regime it is running seem contradictory There used to be a time — and this was well before India began to globalise — when each Union Budget announced sales tax increases on tobacco products, especially cigarettes. The demand for cigarettes being somewhat inelastic, the rise in tax was expected to be a shot in the arm for the revenue-starved government of...

-The Indian Express Haryana farmers' protest: The Indian Express looks at the preparations being made at ground level amid ongoing standoff between the government and farm unions. With no resolution in sight, farmers fighting against the three controversial farm laws have now started preparing themselves for a long battle. With a deep-rooted sentiment among the farmers that the struggle is meant to “save their land”, while terming it their “mother”, they seem...

-The Hindu No decision taken yet on which banks will be privatised, Finance Minister says. Fresh from presenting a Budget that represents a clean break from past policies, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was in Chennai last weekend to hear feedback from industrialists and common citizens. “This is a Budget that was put through the wringer to ensure that every number was credible and achievable and did not reflect over-ambition,” she said,...

-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org The world has been preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic, and this has also affected policymakers everywhere. There is much more recognition today of the terrible effects of underfunding public health over decades and how this affects the resilience of economies and societies. Yet this official preoccupation with addressing the spread of infectious disease appears to have had an unanticipated negative effect: less policy attention to concerns...