-The Hindu The Aadhaar Bill has been passed with no public consultation about the privacy safeguards necessary for such a database and no provision for public or independent oversight. The rights to liberty and freedom of expression cannot survive if the right to privacy is compromised. The Central government has forced the Aadhaar Bill through Parliament in a week. Aadhaar has had an invasive and controversial presence well before the government’s attempt...
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Despite being around for a decade, MGNREGS continues to be plagued by leakages, fraud -Dinesh Narayanan
-The Economic Times I will never make the mistake of discontinuing M(G)NREGA; because it is a living testimony of your failures. After 60 years of Independence you had to make people dig ditches — Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In that March 2015 speech in Parliament, Prime Minister Modi taunted the Congress Party that the rural job guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was required because of the party's...
More »How reforms killed Indian manufacturing -Ashok Parthasarathi
-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...
More »Telcos cheated government of Rs 12,400 crore: CAG
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has claimed that six major telecom companies - Reliance Communications, Tata, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Aircel - have allegedly understated gross revenue of over Rs 46,000 crore for a period between 2006-07 and 2009-10 and denied the government its share of income which has been estimated at more than Rs 12,400 crore. Different from its earlier report on the 2G...
More »The Union Budget’s political message -Smita Gupta
-The Hindu The Union Budget 2016-17 is also the BJP’s way of trying to woo what was always a Congress constituency – rural India. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s third budget has a clear political message: aimed at creating a “feel good” sense among farmers and the rural poor with an eye to the slew of state elections due soon, it is an attempt to change the perception that this is a pro-rich...
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