-Hindustan Times It is good to see Harsh Vardhan, Union minister for science and technology, apprising members of the Lok Sabha on adulterated milk, which has become a part of our diet. However, like many previous mentions of the issue, this one also missed the point: Contamination due to management practices. While efforts are put into testing milk available in the market, we often forget the cows and buffaloes, which are the...

-Kafila.org The last few months have seen an unusual public engagement around questions of secularism, freedom of speech, sedition and the like, with furious debates everywhere from our campuses, streets and TV studios to the floor of Parliament. The budget session has been enlivened by scenes of high drama, with the leading lights of the Treasury benches bringing colour, sound and fury to their tutorials on patriotism and nationalism. While these high-decibel...

-People’s Democracy In the last week of February, a panel set up by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body ruled against India on a complaint by the US in early 2013 that India’s Domestic Content Requirement (DCR) for some solar power projects violated WTO prohibitions on measures that result in “less favourable treatment” of international trade partners. The panel was ruling on an appeal by India in response to the original injunction...

-The Hindu As the government pushes for ‘Make in India’, it could begin by unmaking the damage the post-1991 reforms inflicted on domestic industry. This year marks 25 years since the so-called “economic reforms” were launched in July 1991. By now, broad contours of the policies and practices that characterised such reforms are well known, viz. radical deregulation, marketisation and privatisation of the industrial, technological and financial sectors, and an across-the-board...

-The Hindu The steps taken towards social democracy are being reversed. What we have now are social insurance policies from above. This subverts the entire project of giving voice to the voiceless. India has paid a heavy price for failing to institutionalise social democracy It is generally agreed that theories of social democracy, in comparison to theories of formal political democracy, take cognisance of background inequalities that hamper the realisation of basic...