-The Hindu Business Line Sociologist Dipankar Gupta discusses the dynamics of political mobilisation and the politics of reservation. Excerpts from an interview to Poornima Joshi: * The Indian state’s failure to provide the basics — universal education and healthcare — has never become the rallying point for political mobilisation. Why is that? The more cleavages of class, caste, language, race a society has, the more difficult it is to practise democracy. Democracy works...

-The Indian Express I think packaging a significant UBIS with a simultaneous increase in the taxes on the rich will help macro-economic stability, apart from assuaging the poor who will face some of the price rise in commodities or services, when subsidies are withdrawn. After my last op-ed in this paper (The safety net of the future) several readers, intrigued by the idea of a Universal Basic Income Supplement (UBIS) proposed...

-The Indian Express Insecurity, more than poverty or indebtedness, is the key economic issue that politicians must address If social inequality is the most acutely felt social problem in India, insecurity, more than poverty, is the most acutely felt economic problem. While most measures suggest that only around one-fifth of the population today is under the official poverty line, large sections of those even much above that line are subject to...

-Frontline.inJean Dreze is a well-known Indian economist working in the field of "development economics". Born in Belgium, he studied mathematical economics at the University of Essex and completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi) in 1982.He has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of Economics and is currently visiting professor at Ranchi University as well as honorary professor at the Delhi School...

-Newsclick.in Food grain availability for Indians has increased by just 3.3% since 1961. On this 72nd Independence Day of our India, while there will be the usual speeches and festivities, spare a thought to this shocking bit of news: average availability of food grains for every Indian has increased by 3.3% since 1961. Food grains includes wheat, rice, other cereals and pulses. Among these, per person availability of pulses has actually declined...