-Hindustan Times The anti-CAA protests, the defiance of migrants, and now the farmers’ stir show that the everyday practice of democracy is a powerful corrective in the face of arbitrary and unilateral State decisions Three events defined India’s political landscape in 2020. The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the migrant labour crisis that unfolded as workers defied lockdown orders and asserted their rights, choosing to walk home in the face...
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In quest of MGNREGA: 9.7 million households did not find employment despite seeking work during lockdown, says report -Kushal Mishra
-GaonConnection.com In the wake of the employment crisis caused by COVID-19, the Centre released Rs 1,000 billion under MGNREGA. 71% of this has already been spent, but of the 90 million active job cards, only about 1.9 million were able to complete 100 days of employment by November 2020. MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act), the world’s largest employment guarantee scheme, has so far failed to provide work to 9.7 million households...
More »Worsening of child nutrition calls for immediate and decisive course correction -Sunny Jose
-The Indian Express A complacent approach that assumes that all necessary measures, including the Poshan Abhiyan, are in place and the reversal in progress is only momentary will be a sure way to inflict a debilitating, irreversible impact on children’s nutrition and their well-being. Did child undernutrition in India worsen during the COVID-19 pandemic? The consensus is: yes, most likely. But did we do well in reducing child undernutrition before the lockdown?...
More »Putting food at the centre of India’s nutrition agenda -SV Subramanian and William Joe
-The Hindu Reducing the burden of child undernutrition needs a policy goal — providing affordable access to quality food items The provisional verdict from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS 2019-20 factsheets on the burden of child undernutrition is not encouraging, with few exceptions. For the most part, this assessment has relied on the measure of a child’s anthropometry, i.e., children are defined as stunted, underweight or wasted...
More »Tax policy in trying times -TCA Ramanujam and TCA Sangeetha
-The Hindu The events of the pandemic show how it is the need of the hour to modernise India’s archaic tax laws The word ‘lockdown’, which is Collins Dictionary’s word of the year, sums up the pain that the world underwent in 2020. As a result of the pandemic-induced lockdown, India’s GDP contracted consecutively for two quarters from April to September 2020. Some have gained from the pandemic. India’s super rich only became...
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