-The Hindu A complaint of undue emphasis on rights creates the suspicion that citizens are being disempowered Rights and duties are conceptually linked to one another. There are no rights without duties. If a person has the right to something, it necessarily implies that someone else has a corresponding duty to ensure that it is not violated. For example, if an individual has a right to free speech, then it is the...

-Hindustan Times During the Union Budget presentation, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday had announced that 2022-23 will be considered as the International Year of Millets. “Support will be provided for post-harvest value addition, enhancing domestic consumption, and for branding millet products nationally and internationally,” Sitharaman had said. The government’s assurance will boost states like Karnataka which has moved in the direction to diversify and incentivise production of these super foods. Please click...

-Hindustan Times By prioritizing long-term growth via a capital spending push, the budget has underplayed the need for urgent steps to boost short-term consumption demand. Immediate analyses of the Union Budget are always focused on the headline numbers which the document contains. While these numbers are important , it is essential to take a big picture view of the economy to examine the validity of the budget’s larger premise. Such an exercise...

-Hindustan Times The protests over problems with recruitment for railway jobs in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, may well be India’s first large-scale unemployment riots The protests over problems with recruitment for railway jobs in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, may well be India’s first large-scale unemployment riots. The protests have taken place across a large number of places in these two states. News reports suggest that at...

In the month of January this year, more than 100 homeless persons died (please click here and here to access) in Delhi-NCR due to cold wave like conditions. Although a Delhi-based non-government organisation (NGO) Centre for Holistic Development (CHD) made that claim, and therefore asked the Chief Minister of Delhi to make proper arrangements for the homeless poor during winters, the officials of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB)...